Rania Adim Habena has been chosen as an ABC Heywire winner for 2021.
Heywire is a national storytelling competition open to young people aged 16-22 living in rural, regional or remote Australia. It encourages them to tell their story in text, photo, video or audio. ABC staff support winners to produce their story for publication on the Heywire website. The 35 winners are flown to Canberra for the Heywire Youth Summit.
Rania is SIDE’s fourth Heywire winner. She studied Year 11 and 12 through SIDE in 2019 and 2020 and visited her SIDE teachers while in Perth for her medical appointments. Rania was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which means her bones break easily and are as “fragile as glass.” In her Heywire story, Rania talks about how mobility issues and being in a wheelchair affect her life. Listen to Rania’s story. Rania has also been interviewed on ABC Radio Pilbara.
In 2020 SIDE English teachers Donella Grieco and Jenny Crowe promoted Heywire through an online storytelling workshop. Along with Rania, these SIDE student stories were Highly Commended in 2021: Veejay (Shark Bay School), Destiny (Morawa District High School) and Grace (La Grange Remote Community School).
In response to so many interesting and authentic stories, Heywire organisers Simone Tunbridge and Katie McAllister are working on a new initiative called Remote Voices and planning to visit many rural, regional and remote students and schools to capture youth voices.
Listen to the stories of previous SIDE winners.
Regan Austin (Manjimup 2017)
Raymond Binsiar (Buttah Windee near Meekatharra 2019)
Brielle Hunt (Dunsborough 2020)
Rania Adim Habena (Cocos Island 2021)
Stay tuned for our Heywire Workshops for rural, regional and remote students in Year 11 and Year 12 this year!
