“Strong communities, stronger futures: How do diverse young leaders strengthen rural communities?”

“What we know matters, but who we are matters more.” – Brene Brown

The world is becoming such a negative and bad place, which makes me question what even is the purpose of this life? To live here under the rule of some old white man, who is supposed to be the voice for Australians, but that isn’t the reality. The leaders of today are majority males in their middle age years. How on earth is a person who is the complete opposite of me supposed to make decisions for my best interest, for the best benefit of me. The truth is they can’t.

Over the past several years, the leaders around the globe are slowly destroying it. Isn’t it time for a change? You may ask how can I, a 17-year-old girl, make any impact to anything? That’s the thing, so many of our generation don’t believe they have what it takes to be a leader because that is all they have ever been told. Often women will feel this way and then give up because they have been shut down time and time again. The thing is, I believe that to have the best future possible, our young female leaders need to step up and be the voice for change.

You may wonder what are even the benefits of a young female leader, but that’s the thing … the benefits are endless. The youth of today WILL be the leaders of tomorrow, so why not help them understand what to do now and empower them with the skills required. Many rural communities are on the verge of collapsing because of the way they are run. So many are losing the togetherness that creates a community. Speaking from personal experience the local sporting clubs, annual events such as Christmas parades and community events such as playgroups are all struggling. What do they all have in common? Well I will tell you they aren’t appealing to the younger generations and they have become less of a family in the sense of everyone getting along and coming together. Why you may ask? Because of the people running them. Every event in my community is run by older people who do not have even slightly the same views and opinions as me. If we want to re-spark and refuel these communities, the leadership needs to change.

Handing the power over to the young leaders such as myself will be able to get the youth attending these different events and help the community feel full again. By getting the young leaders involved, it creates a stronger community that will last longer because the young people will stay. I think that empowering the young leaders will help strengthen these communities because we know that knowledge is important, but personality and morals are more important. Yes, we mightn’t know everything or exactly what we are doing but we want to give it a go because we know that this world needs to see some change before it is too late. I am writing this to encourage and inspire the leaders of tomorrow not to wait, but instead become leaders of today because tomorrow is never guaranteed.