Twelve rural women will attend a four day residential leadership and capacity building program and gain the opportunity of a lifetime for themselves and their communities in Canberra this month.
The National Rural Women's Coalition has selected twelve women from an extremely competitive pool of candidates from rural, regional or remote (RRR) areas of Australia, who are interested in leadership and developing their communities.
The National Rural Women's Coalition has developed the unique RRR Women's Canberra Muster leadership Program over the last five years.
Each year a selected cohort of RRR women 'Muster' in Canberra to be inspired, learn, network and grow their leadership skills and give back to their community through a volunteer project of their design.
This year the program has been improved to include a day of Board and committee meeting training.
The 12 successful women out of about 90 applications selected to participate in RRR Women's Canberra Muster 2019 will spend a day at Australian Parliament House including attending a group breakfast hosted by Minister for Agriculture, Senator the Hon Bridget McKenzie and meet with their local members which will give insight to resilience, leadership and advocacy.
The women will also get to meet Minister for Women Senator the Hon Marise Payne, Assistant Minister for Regional Development and Territories, the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, the Hon Nola Marino MP and Senator Larissa Waters.
"The NRWC's RRR Women's Canberra Muster 2019 brings RRR women together to work toward increasing community resilience - this is a strength of the NRWC Muster," NRWC President Leonie Noble said.
"Creating a safe place for Muster participants to share and collaborate during and post this amazing residential program is an essential ingredient of the NRWC Muster".
"History has shown the difference the amazing women who make up the Muster Alumnae have made to both their communities and their personal leadership journeys."
Participants will be introduced to and hear from experienced leaders from diverse backgrounds.
A visit to Parliament house will include a better understanding of the political decision-making process.
Participants will implement a leadership project within three months of completing the residential program and report the outcomes back to the group.
The Muster encompasses a range of speakers who will share their personal leadership experience including framing an advocacy issue, bringing an issue to the attention of policy makers, working politically, shaping public opinion, and strategies to have voices heard.
Participants will develop a project which has a positive impact on building capacity of other RRR women.
Applicants were selected upon project merit, which includes the ability to show leadership in primary industry production or involvement in building resilient and vibrant rural and regional communities.
Yen Hawkes, Co-Founder and CEO of Intercultural Action Group based in Margaret River is a multi passionate entrepreneur, a foodie, has travelled extensively for work and has spent the last 30 years in the corporate sector; a banker for 15 years, managing 5 star hotel benchmarking in the Asia Pacific region, market research consultant and has project managed large scale customer service initiatives for key international clients in Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.
Yen was based in the US, Spain, London, Jakarta and Malaysia for work; which has helped broaden her horizons.
"I am very honoured to be selected by NRWC for the RRR Muster leadership program to represent the Southwest from Margaret River; to be able to connect, learn and share from The Hon Nola Marino MP, other Ministers and inspiring ladies Australia wide," she said.
"I am also very thankful to the Harmony Alliance for the encouragement support and for sponsoring my travel costs for the program."
Yen is planning to organise with the Intercultural Action Group team a community event which will take place in February 2020.
Building Bridges - Experiences & Awareness is all about connecting everyone in the community through Intercultural food, dance interactive session, games from different culture, talks and awareness booths from various stakeholders.
"I would like to create the opportunity for other community groups/stakeholders who are offering services to the community to contact me."
