With COVID-19 measures entering all facets of life, Cowra has been named as one of the hub locations for the Australian Rural Leadership Program (ARLP).
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This week nine of the program's 35 leaders have spent their time in Cowra, which is hosting the program due to restrictions around the pandemic, speaking to the community in an effort to improve regional, rural and remote Australia.
Participant Dougal Gordon said each of the program's cohorts determines an initiative they'd like to progress, with this year's being a wellbeing index.
"Traditionally governments have had a focuse on Gross Domestic Product, jobs, economic stimulus and economic growth as their key drivers," he said.
"Whereas a wellbeing index looks at a range of other social economic indicators, it maybe the degree of education in an area or health, they have connections with the economy but not necessarily associated with just economics.
"The ACT has implemented one, Scotland has implemented one and New Zealand has implemented one.
"We see that as a really good opportunity for rural, regional and remote Australia and our time here is a good example of how do you actually determine which criteria to use and the baseline or benchmark level of the wellbeing of a society."
Fellow participants Clare McLaren and Kylie Dunstan said their time in Cowra had highlighted issues that could be addressed by a wellbeing index.
"Some of them are the same across areas and some of them are different," Ms McLaren said.
"There's some concern for the 15 to 25-year-old age bracket, whether it be mental health, employment or study options, the bypass issue was raised and the need for more vibrant nightlife.
"It's helped us to fine tune the questions we are asking and trying to overlay that with existing wellbeing indexes and see if we can come up with how a wellbeing index can be molded to those issues or inform governments."
Ms Dunstan said her talks had also identified employment opportunities as an issue.
"Some of the issues identified have been around that competitive tension of JobSeeker and JobKeeper and how that's valued by the community and how some businesses can't seem to find jobs," she said.
"Many of the people we've spoken said there's no lack of jobs in Cowra but there is a real need for skilled and unskilled people.
"Others identified they have to go to Orange for specialist medical services and that there is a heap of NDIS funding available here but not enough specialists to provide the support here."
Catherine Blyth, another of the program's participants, said she had been amazed by who the community had identified as leaders for them to speak to.
"It's not always the obvious choice, a lot of the names we have been given are individuals who are not necessarily in a possession of power for the regional area," she said.
"They are respected and do play a leadership role but are passionate to the local area.
"They've lived here for generations, very driven, very busy but are willing to give up their time to talk to us, who want to build a future for the families in the area and attract new people as well."