A catchy hardware jingle appealing to our Kiwi DIY mentality has helped inspire one Aquinas College student to win this year's National Race Unity Speech Competition.

Kimberly D'Mello won the competition at Te Mahurehure Marae in Pt Chevalier, Auckland on Saturday night in front of around 500 people.

Aquinas College Year 12 student Kimberly D'Mello re-enacts her winning 2015 National Race Unity Speech Competition entry. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

Having previously won the Bay of Plenty regional competition, she impressed judges with her 'Do It Yourself” approach to race relations.

More than 170 secondary students nationwide competed in this year's competition, which was open to year 11-13 students.

This year's te reo Maori theme is the proverb 'Itiiti Rearea, Kahika Teitei, Ka Taea” – 'The smallest bellbird is able to climb to the heights of the tallest Kahika tree.”

A topic Kimberly, who was born in India but raised in New Zealand, feels she was able to simplify using good old Kiwi terminology that everyone can relate to.

Her main inspiration was the Mitre 10 DIY advertisement of ‘DIY it's in our DNA', which talks about New Zealanders showing a can do attitude.

During their speeches, contestants had to address the theme and certain quotes including, 'if youth were to have a greater influence in steering the waka named Aotearoa towards becoming a more harmonious nation, how would they do this?”

'So I thought why not use the road code as a metaphor?” says Kimberly. 'Stop at ostracisation.

'When you see an orange light stop or warning sign stop as soon as you can and don't you dare park your prejudices on broken yellow lines.

'It's such a big issue, and we can all relate to it because are all trying to get our drivers licence.”

During her eight minute speech Kimberly told those gathered: 'Don't wait for someone else. Do it yourself. Don't get someone else to fix the problem. Do it yourself and don't rely on the Aussies.

'Wouldn't it be cool if we built bridges between cultures rather than building bridges to contain our differences? We are aiming at building those bridges of Race Unity. So are we gonna get some bloke in? Come on mate - do it yourself.

'Big change starts with me. Big change starts with you. We have two per cent of separation for our 50 shades of different colours. We need to be a country with all colours as one family. So come on New Zealand - do it yourself. DIY, it's in our DNA.”

The 16-year-old believes racism is an important issue in society today and when given the opportunity by her school, she was eager to take the chance to speak about it.

As well as winning $1000 for her school and $1000 for herself, Kimberly also gets to set next year's speech topic and speak at the Race Relations Forum later this year.

The Race Unity Speech Awards is a speech competition for high school students that runs alongside Race Relations Day. The Human Rights Commission sets the speech topic each year, usually to coincide with the theme for Race Relations Day.