00:00Brim's history is carved into the town's streets. The schools gone, the footy club
00:14too, the lifeblood of a town reduced to etchings in brick.
00:19When farms were a lot smaller, a lot more families in the area in those days, sadly
00:29in the past 50 years, you know, the opposite has happened. Farmers have got bigger with
00:34less families.
00:37Brim is located in the heart of Yarriambiak, a region in Victoria's rural north-west that
00:43through its history had 16 football clubs. Now there's just four.
00:48Eagles!
00:49We're all battling for numbers. You can't deny that numbers are going, they're a downward trend.
00:58It's a symptom of a dwindling population.
01:01You can see in the surrounding areas of the smaller towns that once they lose their football
01:06netball club, they lose their population and it's sad to see.
01:12Back in 2001, Yarriambiak had a population a bit over 8,000 people. Today that number's
01:17down to 6,000. It's a quarter of its population gone in the past two decades. That's what gives
01:23this place the title of Victoria's fastest shrinking region.
01:30It's a common problem in Victoria's north-west. West Wimmera has lost 20% of its population.
01:38Baloke, 17.5%. Mildura surrounds, 16.7%. Yarriambiak's mayor knows the region needs to adapt to hang on.
01:50It's around supplying what the families and younger people need now that are still living
01:56in our communities and those that we want to attract in as well.
01:59That includes bringing people to the region with tourism efforts, attractive jobs and remarkable
02:11community spirit. I have been here five days as of today. The locals have been very welcoming
02:18to me. There are green shoots with the recently opened Rapanyip Cafe becoming a cornerstone
02:26of the small community. There hasn't been a coffee shop in town for a long time. So it's forged a lot of new
02:34connections in town and really kind of brought the community together for a central meeting place.
02:44Yarriambiak might be a farming area, but its identity is its people.
02:53Kindness, resilience and an innate drive to chip in and help out. As long as there's people here,
02:59the community will endure. I think it's that cliche of if you don't use it, you'll lose it.
03:06So people do, we put in because that's what we want. That's the community and the world that we want to live in.
03:12That's what we want to live in.
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