Leadership Competition
2026 Leadership Competition winners announced!
After an extremely difficult marking process, Country to Canberra is thrilled to announce the 2026 Leadership Competition Winners!
The nine winners from across regional and rural Australia responded to the question:
“What does the future of health look like for you, your family and your community?”
2026 winners
Charlie Woods
Murwillumbah, NSW
Charlie Woods is a Year 10 student from Murwillumbah. She entered the Leadership Competition to connect with like-minded peers from regional backgrounds and build a network she can use to advocate for her community, with a particular focus on amplifying regional voices through public speaking and debate.
Charlie’s entry highlights the importance of advocating for regional equity and improved healthcare access, issues she sees play out in the tight-knit small-town life she loves. She admires the local volunteers who keep her community running from the SES to Surf Life Saving and the fire brigades for their selflessness and dedication, and hopes to bring the same spirit to her own leadership journey.
Through the Power Trip, Charlie is aiming to build leadership skills, grow her confidence, learn about politics and government, and gain perspectives beyond her hometown. In her spare time, she enjoys walking in the fresh air, listening to music, reading and drawing. She believes programs like Country to Canberra are vital for building leadership skills, opening career pathways, and helping close the gap between rural and city opportunity.
Jessica Mupenzi
Cairns, QLD
Jessica Gihozo Mupenzi is a Year 11 student from Cairns. She entered the Leadership Competition to represent her community and build the skills to help improve it, with her sights set on a future in biomedicine or biomedical engineering; a path she hopes will help make healthcare more affordable and accessible for everyone.
Jessica draws inspiration from the natural beauty and wildlife around her home in Cairns, and from her mother, who taught her to stay resilient, determined and value-driven.
Through the Power Trip, she’s looking forward to building leadership skills, growing her confidence, learning about politics, and expanding her network. Outside of the competition, Jessica enjoys reading, writing (including spoken word poetry), music, singing and walking in nature. She believes programs like Country to Canberra play a vital role in supporting gender equality in leadership and opening doors that might otherwise stay closed.
Mackenzie Buckley
Ballarat, VIC
Mackenzie Buckley is a Year 11 student from Ballarat. She entered the Leadership Competition to challenge herself and grow her leadership skills, drawing on her own experiences to help make sure young people’s voices are heard and supported.
Mackenzie’s role model is Dolly Parton, whom she admires for her kindness, determination, resilience and lifelong commitment to creating opportunities for others.
Her competition entry focuses on accessible and reliable healthcare, an issue shaped by her own family’s experience with gaps in medical treatment. Through the Power Trip, Mackenzie hopes to build leadership skills, meet like-minded people, grow her confidence and represent her community. She’s working towards a future career in personal training and nutrition, and outside of school she enjoys weightlifting, baking, listening to music and Zumba classes with her mum.
Rosemary Ford
Blackwall, TAS
Rosemary Margaret Ford is a Year 11 student from Exeter, Tasmania. She entered the Leadership Competition to raise her voice on an issue deeply relevant to her own family: the lack of specialist healthcare available in rural areas. Rosemary is preparing for university with ambitions to study law, with a future focus on international or humanitarian law.
She values the strong sense of community, the calm environment and the beauty of the Tasmanian countryside, and names her parents as her role models for their kindness, dedication and constant support. Through the Power Trip, Rosemary hopes to build leadership skills, meet like-minded people, gain new perspectives, and represent her community.
Outside of school and study, she enjoys reading, drinking coffee, going to the gym, spending time with friends and walking her dog. Rosemary believes programs like Country to Canberra are vital for closing the rural-city opportunity gap and reinforcing that young women’s voices matter.
Nanma Maria Jinish
Peterborough, SA
Nanma Jinish is a Year 11 student living in Peterborough, South Australia. She first learned about the Leadership Competition through her teacher and felt an immediate personal connection to its themes. Having moved to Australia from Dubai less than two years ago, Nanma has come to love the peaceful nature of rural life, while candidly acknowledging the challenges of settling into a new environment.
Nanma looks up to people who stand up for themselves and use their opportunities to make the world better; a philosophy that shapes her own ambitions in mental health, disability support, or an assisting role within anaesthetics or respiratory care.
Through the Power Trip, she’s aiming to build leadership skills, meet like-minded people, learn about government, make career connections and gain new perspectives. To relax, Nanma enjoys Netflix, baking, listening to music, dancing and Instagram. She believes programs like Country to Canberra are vital for building confidence and ensuring young women’s voices are heard.
Hannah Alawneh
Wagg Wagga, NSW
Hannah Alawneh is a Year 12 student from Wagga Wagga. Having been a runner-up in last year’s Leadership Competition, Hannah returned determined to focus her entry on a cause close to her heart: youth mental health. She believes the struggles young people face in this space are too often misunderstood or overlooked, and sees the competition’s focus this year as a vital platform to change that.
Through the Power Trip, Hannah is looking forward to building her leadership skills, meeting like-minded peers from across the country, and representing her community in Canberra. She says the lack of opportunities in rural Australia has pushed her to work harder and step outside her comfort zone, a mindset she credits to her mother, whose kindness, selflessness and determination she deeply admires.
Outside of school, Hannah enjoys spending time with loved ones, listening to music, reading, travelling and drawing. She’s currently working towards the highest ATAR she can achieve, with an eye on a future career as a psychiatrist. Hannah believes programs like Country to Canberra are essential for giving young women access to opportunities, role models, and the reassurance that their voice matters.
Xanthe Ryan
Bendigo, VIC
Xanthe Ryan is a Year 11 student from Vaughan, on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. She entered the Leadership Competition to sharpen her leadership and public speaking skills, connect with like-minded peers, and build her knowledge of leadership and politics.
Xanthe finds calm and beauty in living close to nature, and draws inspiration from the authentic, hardworking people in her family and community. Her current focus is performing her best in Year 12 while keeping a balanced life; longer term, she’s driven by a simple goal to help others and improve the world around her.
Through the Power Trip, she’s selected goals of building leadership skills, meeting like-minded people, growing her confidence, learning about politics and government, making career connections, and representing her community. Outside the competition, Xanthe enjoys soccer, swimming in the river, running or walking in the bush, reading and watercolour painting. She believes programs like Country to Canberra are vital for supporting gender equality and connecting rural women with role models.
Amelia Phommachanh
Gray, NT
Amelia Phommachanh is a student from Palmerston, NT. Through the Power Trip, she’s hoping to build leadership skills, grow her confidence, make career connections and meet like-minded people, all while representing her community.
Amelia’s role model is her family, she draws strength from her parents and her whole lineage, whose resilience in facing challenges from immigration and adapting to a new culture gives her the freedom and inspiration to follow her own passions. She loves the closeness of rural community life, saying collaboration there feels natural rather than forced, and credits that connection with motivating her ongoing work in youth advocacy.
Looking ahead, Amelia wants to travel and represent the NT at national events. She’s also an artist, content creator and journaller, and unwinds through gaming, alongside self-care. She believes programs like Country to Canberra are vital for opening up opportunities, role models and career pathways that young women and non-binary people in rural Australia might not otherwise access.
Malia Combrink
Carnarvon, WA
Malia Combrink is a Year 12 student from Carnarvon. She entered the Leadership Competition to grow as a leader, advocate for women and underrepresented groups, and build on her school leadership experience to create more inclusive opportunities in her community.
Malia believes rural living offers young people unique opportunities for leadership and community involvement that city students may miss out on and sees this year’s competition theme as a chance to address real barriers faced by rural teenagers. She admires people who demonstrate resilience, compassion, courage and discipline, and hopes to embody those same traits in her own leadership.
Through the Power Trip, Malia is aiming to build leadership skills, grow her confidence, meet like-minded people, learn about politics and government and represent her community. Her own ambitions include achieving highly at school, moving on to university, and developing the skills to advocate for all communities while being a supportive figure for those doing it tough. To reset and stay balanced, she enjoys reading, listening to music and spending time with friends.
The Prize
Our 2025 Leadership Competition winners will get the following fantastic prize:
All expenses paid four-day Power Trip to Canberra, including:
— Leadership and Empowerment Training
- Award-winning Country to Canberra Project Empower workshop to develop an understanding of diversity, build your self-esteem, and learn to apply your values.
- Targeted public speaking and presentation workshops from industry professionals.
- Personalised leadership coaching and support.
— Networking Opportunities
- Q&As with CEOs, industry leaders, and inspiring activists.
- Powerful discussions and private meetings with state and federal politicians.
- The chance to connect with other incredible like-minded women and non-binary people from all across rural and remote Australia!
— Careers Coaching
- An inspiring careers fair, driven by Agrifutures Australia.
- Future focused goal setting support from the University of Canberra.
Other incredible perks include:
- Access to our exclusive Alumni Network, and additional networking opportunities
- A winners’ pack, full of merchandise, resources, information, and goodies!
- Winning entries will be published on the Country to Canberra website, as well as by our sponsors and key partners to provide national exposure.
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