Thanks to her work with The Flamingo Project, Neha Samar has been selected as a finalist for the Victorian Rural Women’s Award.
“Last year in around October, one of my very good friends tapped me on the shoulder saying that this is a very good award,” Mrs Samar said.
“She encouraged me to go for it.”
Two months later, Mrs Samar was invited to join an online interview where a panel decided on the finalists.
It wasn’t until February that Mrs Samar found out she was one of five finalists and would participate in face-to-face judging.
The winner of the award is yet to be announced, but Mrs Samar has plans for what to do if she takes home the $15,000 prize.
“If I win the $15,000 my plan is to actually make this into a not-for-profit, but I will be going through solicitors to register this property and then apply for grants and fundings to keep this running,” she said.
“I also plan on making it more accessible in other rural places, regional places in Victoria.”
When Mrs Samar moved to Shepparton in 2015, she experienced the difficulty of connection building, which inspired her to create the program.
“It was really difficult to actually know people and I looked for a job for a year and a half and I couldn’t really find anything,” she said.
“I was qualified educational wise and work wise overseas. But it wasn’t easy to get a job.”
Making her first connection led to her first job, proving to her that connection was everything.
“The only way I found a job was talking to someone at the library, telling them that, you know what, I’m looking for something,” she said.
“She took my number down and she called me when something was available.”
Having spent eight years living in Shepparton, she said progress was yet to be made.
“Not much has changed ... even now people are finding it difficult to break into either professional industries or maybe just to get to know someone else,” she said.
The response she has had from the community and the success stories of her participants have kept her from burning out.
“I think it’s a satisfaction of seeing someone find what they’re looking for. I didn’t have that,” she said.
“If I can make that easy for even one person at a time, I feel like that’s a big achievement.”
Mrs Samar continues to advocate for the importance of communication and connection.
“It shouldn’t take, you know, a platform for women to talk to each other. It should be done regardless,” she said.
“I feel like especially regional areas can progress a lot more.”
Her love of regional areas also includes her passion for bringing people to Shepparton and helping them want to stay in the region.
“When people move from cities to regional places like Shepparton, we’ve seen that the retention is not there as much as it should be,” she said.
“They’re not staying back, and one of the biggest reasons they are not staying back is because they don’t have a purpose to stay back.
“We need to communicate more.”
If you’re in the Goulburn Valley and want to learn more about the Flamingo Project, or to join the program, head to TheFlamingoProject.com.au
If you need support in something that needs to be addressed immediately, reach out to Mrs Samar at hello@Flamingoproject.com.au