Popstar, police officer, artist, astronaut. We all grow up with dreams, amazing fantasies about who we want to be. But instead, we grow up in an ever changing consumeristic, violent, and vain world. One where a lack of female role models causes uninspired, unmotivated, and underrepresented girls and aren’t taught valuable leadership qualities.

One where people starve on the streets, and kids cannot afford an education. I see this in the homeless people, hidden behind streets and shops, in nooks and crannies, hidden from the world like a dirty secret no one wants to keep. I hear this from peers at my school, obsessed with just one more puff of their vape, just one more and, just maybe they’ll feel something. I feel this in the air, a suffocating coat of dread, draped across the world’s shoulders, each car and cattle, exhaling poison into the air.

You can’t be what you can’t see.

How can any of these kids even begin to make a change, when the adults around then fail to inspire the next generation? How can we as a nation, even begin to move forward when our kids, our future, aren’t encouraged to have a voice? I was lucky enough to have a family full of inspiring women, who saw the importance of changing the world and taught me too as well.

My nana, Susanne Hunter, started her charity in 2004, following the Bali Bombings, and provided support for children in Bali, often living in extreme poverty, to complete their schooling. She also supports 5 local primary schools with scholarships for students who love learning and attending high school. She received no money from selflessly volunteering for over 20 years and she’s changed so many people’s lives by providing an education and breaking the cycle of poverty.

With her in my community, I see people in need being helped and supported by selfless women.

My mum, Jasmine Hunter, has been working as a nurse for over 25 years. She worked long hours as a community health nurse, on the front line during covid, helping to keep our community safe. She works with mothers, at-risk children, and young babies. Providing check-ups, referrals, and advice to parents that have nowhere else to go.

With her in my community, I hear safe and healthy kids, looked after by passionate women.

My aunt, Melissa Carter, has worked as a teacher for over 10 years. She works in a low socio-economic school and spends her time educating at-risk children. Many of the children she teaches have learning disabilities, and she collaborates with parents to get them diagnosed and treated. She supports kids many would shove off to just be troublemakers and helps stop them from falling into the cracks of the school system.

With her in my community, I feel our nation’s children, our future, are in safe inspiring hands.

These strong women leaders in my community, and so many more unrecognised ones, inspire me to be who I am, and inspire me to be the change I want to see. I can see a future of equality in my community, one where girls have equal education opportunities and discrimination between genders, religions and skin colour is abolished. I want to be someone who can see these issues, and work to fix them. I want to be someone who inspires others to become young leaders. Someone who makes the world a better place. These valuable women leaders in my community inspire me with values of passion, selflessness, and hard work, and inspire me to want to change my community for the better.