Rural women of the year awards helping propel regional projects

ABC NEWS (Australia)

CONTENT Warning: This video mentions suicide.  Carol Mudford, shearer, nurse and founder of sHedway, a shearing suicide prevention group, was named the 2025 Rural Woman of the Year a few weeks ago. The awards, run by Agrifutures Australia, are celebrating their 25th year.

Transcript

00:00The Great Hall of Parliament House is a long way from a shearing shed.

00:09And the winner is Carol Mudford from New South Wales.

00:14And as close as Carol Mudford got to wool on the night she won the 2025 Rural Woman of the Year

00:19was her Merino dress.

00:21From Dubbo in New South Wales Central West,

00:24Carol is a shearer, a mental health nurse and an agent for change.

00:28I do not stand here alone and Shedway is not only my work.

00:34The phenomenal growth and support and engagement that we have had

00:39around a topic that is one of the hardest things to talk about

00:43is because of the incredible strength and heart of the shearing community behind me.

00:50In 2023, when the shearing industry lost three shearers to suicide in one month,

00:55she went from shearing full-time to working in a suicide prevention program.

01:01Eventually, she left to set up Shedway, which started just as a Facebook page.

01:07We are making it normal to talk about mental health in the sheds, breaking the stigma.

01:14The shearing industry runs events across Australia nearly every weekend.

01:18Quick shear competitions, wool handling and world record attempts.

01:21And that's where you'll find Carol and her small band of volunteers.

01:25They've attended around 80 events this year,

01:27talking to shearers about the importance of looking after their mind and body,

01:32as well as their shears.

01:33Because we are practical people and we all want to know what to do

01:38to help ourselves or others, we share the skills as well.

01:42So that is running workshops.

01:44We have a toolbox talk, a take to shearing schools, visit sheds,

01:49and rolling out safe talk as a certified suicide awareness workshop.

01:57Carol is likely to be a whole lot busier next year.

02:01For the quietly spoken and humble Carol Mudford,

02:04the award is more than a stepping stone.

02:06But it might be a bit more of a launch pad than a regular stepping stone, I think.

02:12It's incredible.

02:13And you said last night that you'd like to do yourself out of a job

02:17so that you didn't have to have something like suicide prevention.

02:22Yeah, absolutely.

02:23That's the ultimate goal for anyone doing this work, isn't it?

02:28To see our communities living well and towards zero suicides in our community.

02:36Oh, it's true.

02:37Oh, my God.

02:38I'm afraid you are going to be a boy but not a國家.

02:54Wow.

02:55Yeah.

02:56That's good.

02:57That's my fault.

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