To celebrate The Weekly’s 80th birthday we’re proud to have launched a unique initiative to help Australia’s young women of the future fulfil their dreams.
Meet some of the early entrants who are in the race to be among the finalists in our search for the nation’s most inspiring young women.
Rhiannon Tracey-Bradford 25, VIC
When Rhiannon Tracey-Bradford dived into the unmarked pool at her hotel in Bali, late one evening, she had no idea her life was about to change forever.
“The sides of the pool sloped down at an angle, not straight up and down,” she says. “I didn’t know. There was no warning, no lighting. It was midnight.
I remember hitting the bottom and thinking, ‘Oh, no. What have I done?’”
Rhiannon suffered a broken neck and back. When she returned home in an air ambulance, almost dead after an horrific experience in an Indonesian hospital, doctors told her she would never walk again. Australian doctors had to perform more surgery to correct what was done in Bali, but in the process they had to cause even more trauma to Rhiannon’s spinal cord. The chances were she would not even be able to feed herself.
“That was pretty scary,” Rhiannon recalls. “I remember Mum coming in to tell me that I was in the middle of a huge marathon, that if I came out the other end alive, I’d be lucky.”
She survived — mainly because of her mother’s unshakable strength and support, says Rhiannon — but wasn’t prepared to accept a future locked in a wheelchair. Determined to walk again, she sought out a rehabilitation program in the US after failing to find a suitable program here.
“I left the facility able to take my own steps unaided,” she says. “I met people determined to get well. I’d experienced something amazing and it was important to me that other people got to experience it, too.” Now, she is doing many of the things she was once told she would never do. And she is setting up a rehabilitation program for spinal injuries in the northern Melbourne suburb of Thomastown.
“We now have a waiting list of clients wanting to use the facility once it is open,” says Rhiannon. “This is my dream — to be able to help as many people as I can have a better quality of life.”
Lauren Moss 26, program co-ordinator, NT
In a world saturated with celebrity diets and fitness fads, it’s often easy to get caught up in a body-bashing cycle — be it a seemingly innocent throw-away remark to a friend, or that familiar guilty feeling when you open the fridge for a snack late at night.
No one knows this better than Lauren Moss, co-founder of the Skin Deep Project. “A couple of friends told me that they felt embarrassed that body image was their number one concern,” explains Lauren. “It’s a hidden shame to admit how much we really dislike ourselves sometimes.”
The Skin Deep Project aims to promote positive body image with events, activities and opportunities for young Territorians.
“Body image affects so many parts of our lives and the way we feel about ourselves affects many of the decisions we make and the behaviours we undertake. It’s incredibly important that we help people get a better sense of themselves and a bit more pride about who they are — not what they look like.”
Currently without funding, Lauren would use The Weekly’s $20,000 Women of the Future scholarship to make the body image conversation bigger and louder by introducing forums to the project’s website.
“The more people we reach with this message, the better,” says Lauren. “I’d also like to see us become an incorporated body so that we can get our message out into schools.
“We have a strong sense that what we’re doing is right and with a little bit of extra support, we can kick the project up a level.”
Fiona Selimi 26, radiographer, NSW
For most young girls, it’s their mum who’s a constant comforting presence — reading bedtime stories, drying tears and sharing hugs. Yet for Fiona, whose mum, Anna-Maria, was suffering from multiple sclerosis, growing up was different.
“Mum’s condition deteriorated after I was born and, later, she was completely bed-ridden,” says Fiona. “It was a very difficult time.”
The Selimi family rallied, spending most of their time at hospitals and with a constant parade of specialists.
“Looking back, I was angry and disappointed at Mum’s treatment because the doctors didn’t show her any compassion or empathy,” says Fiona, who lost her way when she was just 15, after Anna-Maria died.
“I wasn’t the brightest or most academically focused student and I hung around the bad kids,” Fiona says. “When Mum passed away, that got a lot worse — I started skipping school.”
It took one simple question from a teacher to get Fiona to reconsider her direction. “She asked me, ‘What would your mum say?’ That went right to my heart. I went home and thought, ‘She’s absolutely right’.”
That wake-up call meant Fiona applied herself to her studies. Three years later, she was the dux of her Year 12 class with a UAI of 90.25, all the while working up to 60 hours a week to support her family. Remembering the experiences of her family when her mum was suffering from MS, Fiona knew exactly where her university studies would take her.
“I couldn’t get into medicine, so I did a Bachelor of Science. I’m now studying to get into post-graduate medicine.”
Fiona plans to become a GP and open her own medical centre in Sydney’s Mount Druitt. “I want to make a difference and help others, and I’d like to think that Mum would be really proud.”
Emma Green 23, stay-at-home mum, WA
When Emma Green discovered that her mother had breast cancer three years ago, she was faced with an agonising dilemma. As part of her mother’s medical investigations, Emma found she carried the so-called breast cancer gene, BRCA1, which means she has more than a 50 per cent chance of developing breast cancer like her mother.
After many dark nights of the soul, Emma decided that her peace of mind lay in a radical solution — a prophylactic mastectomy, preventative surgery to remove her breasts, thereby removing the potential risk to her life.
“It’s so scary and a very big decision, but it’s the best option for me,” says Emma, a mother of one-year-old twins and a six-year-old boy.
“My breasts have done their job, they’ve fed my three babies and if they’re going to betray me, make me sick or kill me, I’d like to do whatever I can to prevent that and be here for my husband and children.
“Part of Mum’s journey [with cancer] was to write out her family tree. She discovered cancer on both sides of my family, so we are in the high-risk category.”
Throughout it all, Pink Hope, an online community for women at high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, has provided Emma with much-needed support. “Just talking to women in the same situation is comforting. The Pink Hope girls are so supportive and they’ve helped me feel confident with my choice [to undergo surgery].”
Her surgery, which will include full breast reconstruction, will take place early next year.
Emma has become a Pink Hope community ambassador — fundraising, planning events and visiting members after their surgeries — and dreams of expanding her assistance through comfort hampers for mastectomy patients. “For what I get out of Pink Hope, I want to be able to put more in.”
Susanna Matters 25, primary teacher, NSW
When her female students kept missing their classes in a small rural Kenyan village last year, teacher Susanna Matters wanted to know why.
She asked the only secondary teacher in the village what the problem was. “She told me their regular absences were because they didn’t have any sanitary pads,” says Susanna, who’s a Sydney primary school teacher. “They were using cow dung, grass, rags and padding from old mattresses, things that can cause serious infection.”
Susanna was so shocked that she went to the nearest town and bought enough disposable pads to keep her students in class for the rest of her stay.
“I couldn’t keep being the tooth fairy of sanitary pads forever,” she says. “The flight back to Australia takes about 48 hours and I had nothing else to think about. It’s not a glamorous issue, but it’s also one that isn’t going away. I couldn’t turn my back on my students — any good teacher will tell you that — and I thought, ‘If I don’t do something about it, who will? The buck stops with me’.”
Susanna had worked with non-profit organisations before – as a young ambassador to UNICEF and a Girl Guide leader — and when she got home to Sydney, she started banging the drum. Thus, Goods for Girls was born.
“Goods for Girls isn’t just about handing out disposable pads – we wanted a program that would empower girls and be environmentally friendly as well. We train the girls to make their own washable products, so that not only do they meet their own needs, but they learn to sew on a machine. It’s a vocational skill because often the most affluent person in a village is the tailor.
“If we can get more funding, we’ll buy the products back off the girls. I’m like a proud mother — this is my baby of a solution.”
Visit goodsforgirls.wordpress.com
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