Women and gender diverse people are leaders regardless of whether we see them or not. They are the parents and partners behind those in the public eye and if not, they are in the public themselves. This could not be truer than for Sal Kimber, a leader and visionary within the Towong Shire working to create change in rural communities using music, and creating spaces where queer youth feel safe and celebrated.

People make claims day in, day out but the leaders are the ones who stand by these claims and back them up with their actions. Sal does exactly that. She has helped organise concerts for youth to help give them the confidence to perform, conducted surveys and research with the help of these young people to find where support is needed and assist the Shire in implementing strategies to fix these holes and create a better place for not only our youth, but everyone involved in the community. Throughout all of these actions, Sal’s morals are clear and strong, unchanging and unmoving yet delivered with a gentle demeanour and a softness to them to show that she wants to help. This confidence in herself and her beliefs demonstrates to others around her the benefits of faith in yourself, giving them the confidence to find their own beliefs and learn that same level of clarity and comfort with themselves.

Despite all the good that has been achieved, Sal has and continues to face many roadblocks in her work. A lack of funding for these small communities to run programs paired with lack of staffing results in very limited capacity and the potential for these programs to only run for a short while before the funding runs out and they cease to exist. This prevents these vital leaders within our community from getting the exposure to young people, limiting the potential impact these people could have both as young leaders and into their future due to the loss of the ability to further leadership skills without travelling great distances or spending exorbitant amounts of money. I know that as a young leader myself in a rural space, I’ve had to travel to a major centre for opportunities on multiple occasions to expand on my own skill.

I am aware of many other strong women within my community, many of our local businesses are owned and run by women and my school has women in almost all major positions including both principal and vice principal but Sal Kimber is the only one I know of in my community who is putting in the effort to see change. This is a problem.

Having been through the legal system and being involved with child protective services, I am personally aware of the many shortfalls of these systems and how they fail to serve those that need it most. Despite these concerns, I know of very few, let alone a woman or gender diverse individual, who is fighting for change on a local or national level, those that are hide in the background, satisfied by the work they achieve and unwanting of the media attention but this means I have no role models outside of my own small community to show me the way to a larger scale. 

That is my goal, to be the figure that I don’t have, to show young people of the future that change is possible regardless of background, you just need to jump for it. Some have made the leap before, but we will one day make our own, and we will become the leaders for the next generation.