Tanya Dupagne packed up everything when she left for the tiny town of Kulin in Western Australia: her home, local government role and position as CEO of one of the country’s fastest growing charities.
Awaiting her new life in the Shire of Kulin was a population of just 300, the largest waterslide in regional Australia and an opportunity to use the town’s excellent facilities to create a new youth program as the first Camp Kulin Manager.
The finalist in the NAB Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards has since worked with a team of volunteers to create a scholarship camp program for disadvantaged youth, bringing a new industry to the town and creating new opportunities for campers and camp counselors alike.
“It was a big decision and it took me in the opposite direction of where people expected me to go,” Dupagne says on making the move, including deciding not to run for a second term with the City of Kwinana Council, where she’d served as its youngest ever Councillor.
“I was the CEO [of charity the Global Good Foundation] and found myself working enormous hours, doing paper work and admin and not getting enough time working with kids. I wanted to get back to basics. I wanted to get back to working with the kids and training up other leaders.”
She had acquired such experience working in camps for more than a decade in Australia and overseas. Having run a number of camps in Kulin with Global Good, she saw the town’s facilities – including the slide, recreation centre, hall and natural attractions – were sitting empty most of the year, and took the camp proposal to the local council. They liked the idea and the position of Camp Kulin Manager was created.
While still in its first couple of years of operation, the camp is looking to offer a wide range of kids programs, school camps and options for corporate teambuilding and conferences in 2014. Dupagne says she’s had a 100% return rate on all her volunteers so far, and is proud to say many have also gone on to other employment and educational opportunities.
Success, she says, comes from making a difference to the lives of others, even if it’s just one person. “People always say to me, ‘You can’t change the world’. But my take on it is that you can’t change the world for everyone but you can change it for one person.”
Tanya Dupagne is a finalist in the Regional/Rural Entrepreneur or Manager category of the NAB Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards. Check back for more on the finalists on Women’s Agenda in the coming weeks.
Want to join NAB, Women’s Agenda and guest speaker Anna Bligh at the 2014 Leadership Awards to celebrate the men and women who help women to achieve? Make sure to get your tickets now, they’re selling fast!