The three finalists have been unveiled for this year’s NSW-ACT Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation Rural Women’s Award and two of the ladies reside in the Riverina region.
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Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair announced that Cindy Cassidy of Ariah Park, Trudy McElroy from Deniliquin and Sophie Anderson from the Byron Bay Hinterland will each vie for the title.
Mr Blair was pleased to see the quality of work being done by women in regional areas.
“Having two state finalists coming out of the Riverina region, Ariah Park and Deniliquin, is a testament to the quality and level of commitment from a lot of our regional women from this area,” he said.
“They are all worthy finalists fingers crossed one of them goes on to take out the award and replicates what we saw last year where a NSW finalist went on to win national award.
“The award’s based on things such as contribution to the community and to industry and if you look at Trudy for example, her desire to up-skill and provide opportunity for women in her community, to be able to address some of the issues that they’re facing in the Deniliquin area it's just really exciting to see someone like Trudy helping others.”
Ms McElroy was very pleased to be announced as a finalist and hopes she can help inspire other women in rural areas.
“It's exciting, very humbling, I never thought I would get this far really,” she said.
“It's really good to represent the region and get Deniliquin on the map as well.
“I would like to be a facilitator so I want to introduce courses and short workshops into our local regions to up-skill our local women in return helping to better their bottom line in their industry.
“I would like to get more women into important decision making roles through primary industries as well so if I can up-skill our local women it would give them so many tools for the future.
“Winning the award would give me great representation to start my concept and to get it out there.
“It would help me be a role model for rural women because there are a lot of women out there who have ideas and they have the mindset that their idea might not be that good and so they won't do it or something like that.
“Hopefully I can give them the incentive to go yes, we've got a great idea let's embrace it and go for an award such as this because every idea can be a great idea.”
The winner will be announced on May 26 at a ceremony at NSW Parliament with the winner to receive a bursary of $10,000.
They will also compete for the national title later this year.
