A TikTok teacher, a drag king and a pilot are just some of the inspiring young Australians who have won this year’s Heywire Trailblazer competition.
Thirteen Trailblazer winners have been named – all of whom are aged 18–28 and are doing incredible things in their regional home towns.
This week, they'll head to Parliament House to share the stories behind their big ideas with politicians and community leaders as part of the Trailblazers summit.
Their projects are unique, but the individuals behind them have a shared kind of origin story: a painful turning point in their lives became the start of change for themselves and their communities.
Mayála-bol
Menah McKenzie had felt the excruciating ripple effect of suicide across her family and community three times before losing her older brother to suicide in 2019.
Coming together with like-minded people was where healing started.
Together with her cousin Noni, also bereaved by suicide, she founded Mayála-bol — a social enterprise focused on holistic social and emotional wellbeing for First Nations women and youth
"We know the wellness space can often be a barrier or stigmatising for First Nations people, which can prevent people from accessing these spaces," Menah says.
To break down those barriers, Menah's approach to culture is strengths-based: she embeds connection to country, kinship and yarning into wellness.
Mayála-bol strives to create accessible spaces that are culturally safe and embedded with cultural integration, ensuring First Nations women and youth can meet their own needs, their way
“Wellness our way acknowledges our pain, our trauma and our lived experience, but it also allows First Nations people to be guided and held in a culturally safe space that sees the importance of our culture, our identity and our belonging," Menah says.
"Wellness our way taps into country as healing, storytelling as healing, sitting in circle as healing, dance and song as healing, language as healing, breath as healing."
The Pandaemonium Paper
Alice Armitage is a farmer's daughter from Guyra, NSW.
She knew regional Australia was home to unique opportunities, individuals and communities.
But she felt like young, ambitious people didn't always know how to find each other.
After losing her cousin, Nick, to suicide when he was 18, she decided to share the beautiful and brutal behind-the-scenes reality of what country life could be.
That's why she founded the Pandaemonium Paper — a quarterly newspaper showcasing the innovators, creatives and self-starters living outside the metropolitan mould.
Alice is curating a more diverse representation of what's possible for the youth of regional Australia.
"Founding Pandaemonium has become a channel for me to not only honour Nick's legacy, but to support the young, ambitious country kids like myself, like Nick, and many others struggling to find their way," she says.
Down Tilt Esports
After Dean Baron lost his Mum to suicide when he was 19, he felt isolated from the world around him. But he found a sense of connection online, playing video games.
Together with his mate Jai Phillips, he created the Down Tilt Esports league – a place for people to come together in Launceston and online, to be themselves and share their passion for gaming.
From the mentoring experience he will receive as part of the Trailblazer program, Dean hopes to develop skills and build support to set up events "that celebrate the growing culture around gaming as not only a hobby, but as a community to feel safe in.”
YAAS! Young, Authentic and Social
Carlee Heise is a drag king, youth worker and the lead of YAAS! (Young, Authentic and Social) – an arts program for 12–24-year-olds with diverse abilities and identities living on Darkinjung country.
Carlee grew up in Wagga Wagga and along the Central Coast, but it wasn't until she left regional NSW that she started to understand her sexuality.
"Visibility affirms the identities of queer young people and promotes a celebration of diversity in the minds of all young people, marginalised or not," she says.
In her role as a senior youth worker, Carlee has seen the harassment and bullying some young LGBTQIA+ people on the Central Coast experience.
She knows discrimination doesn't have to be a daily reality and is on a mission to ensure young people can live loudly and proudly in their home town.
Elsie James Grazing Co
Creating safer and more respectful communities is the goal for Zhanae Dodd. Her great-great-grandmother was an Aboriginal horsewoman.
Two generations later, Zhanae's connected her passion for Indigenous advocacy and culture with her love of agriculture to start a social enterprise.
"As a young person I have experienced what it is like to become a statistic in government systems like health and justice, but I have also experienced the healing which connection to country and culture can bring," she says.
Elsie James Grazing Co is a mixed farming operation of beef cattle and traditional cropping in Central Queensland.
Zhanae wants to create a place where young people can come to complete a Youth Justice Order, find employment, strengthen their cultural identity and open pathways in the agricultural industry.
"I think there is such power in bringing together the agricultural industry and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to create mutual understanding and foster innovation and healing for everyone involved," she says.
Miss Hobbs Talks All Things VCE
Louise Hobbs lives in Kaniva, Victoria, on Wotjobaluk Country. She's collided two worlds – the classroom and TikTok – to create Miss Hobbs Talks All Things VCE.
"I was fortunate I had family support to board an hour away in Horsham for my Year 12. Many country students aren't that fortunate, it's the reason I became a teacher," she says.
Within school hours, you'll find Miss Hobbs teaching students in the Wimmera region of Victoria.
Outside of that, she's creating content for Instagram, TikTok or Spotify to meet her students on the platforms they're on, ensuring young people have access to quality education, no matter where they live.
Now I Can Run
Amy Tobin is an athlete and businesswoman who has represented regional Australia in the Oceanic Championships and opened sporting clubs in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory.
On Yugambeh Country along the Gold Coast, she is working to support people living with disability to play sport on their own terms.
"I am in an electric wheelchair. Growing up, I felt isolated with no opportunities to participate in group or sporting activities," says Amy, who was born with cerebral palsy.
After training and competing in wheelchair racing, it wasn't until Amy discovered race running (an innovative sport for people with disability) that she found the freedom and independence she'd been missing.
She wanted to bring this joy to people across Australia and started by fundraising to purchase six frames for local people in her area. Seeing the difference access to a social sporting community made to their lives, Amy founded Now I Can Run.
These days, she sponsors athletes in remote and rural areas to attend race running camps, workshops and competitions.
Amy is working to create opportunities for other people with disabilities to participate and work in group sporting events to feel connected, empowered and celebrated.
Lake Boga Bank 2 Bank
In Victoria's Mallee region, Arlie Atkinson is using swimming to promote mental health and foster a sense of community.
Every year, Arlie and her dad swim across Lake Boga. They started to do it in 2014 as a bit of a challenge between the two of them.
Now, the Lake Boga Bank 2 Bank event is an annual event for Arlie's town and she wants to challenge as many people as possible to take part.
"I feel so honoured to watch the event come together and see citizens from Swan Hill and surrounds unite together at one of the first community events since the pandemic," she says.
Wings Without Barriers
Flying has expanded horizons for Hayden McDonald.
Growing up on the spectrum in Esperance in WA, Hayden felt like sometimes the world wasn't built for him.
So he decided to combine his twin passions of aviation and promoting real inclusion for people on the spectrum by starting a vlog – Wings Without Barriers.
"I successfully got my recreational pilot's certificate at 17, but when I started the medical process to apply for commercial training, I was told not to bother, because my autism diagnosis would automatically rule me out," he says.
"That's motivated me to speak out about my right, and others', to be assessed on ability, not disability."
Hayden plans to solo circumnavigate regional Australia in a light aircraft and wants to present to schools along the way to show other young people that the sky's the limit.
Project Vulcan
Tasmania is renowned for its natural wilderness, but George Van Dijk, Nicole Pirlot and Julian Pavy are scared that their safe isle is under threat from warming temperatures.
As disability advocates and performers, they know that while Tasmania has the highest percentage of disabled persons per capita, they're not always included in the conversation.
Enter Project Vulcan: a theatre production created and performed by Tasmanian actors with disabilities, supported by their able-bodied director.
"We tell the story of Vulcan, a god born imperfect who becomes the god of fire," George says.
"It started in 2020 when we experienced the bushfires and wanted to do something about climate change and disability advocacy."
A Tasmanian tour is the first step, then they’re off to the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where they hope to represent the Apple Isle and send a "message for the world and our climate".
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The ABC's Trailblazers program provides a platform for individuals and groups of up to three working on projects to make regional Australia a better place.
Winners receive media support, networking and mentorship opportunities and an all-expenses-paid trip to Canberra.
If you would like to find out more about the next Trailblazers intake, go to the ABC Heywire website.
