Twenty-five years ago, Rachel Downie became an educator to help young people flourish. After losing a year 9 student to suicide, Rachel decided she needed to find a way to support young people to say something when things aren't right. She discovered students often felt too frightened to come forward with possible life-saving information because of peer expectations. This led Rachel to develop and self-fund Stymie – an old-fashioned word for stop – to allow students to anonymously report harm without fear. Rachel developed Stymie with extensive consultation and help from students and educators. Since 2014 she has presented Stymie to more than 300,000 students nationally.
Implemented nationally and internationally, students are using Stymie to report family violence, bullying, cyber-bullying, depression, illegal activity, harassment, self-harm, and harm to their communities. In 2018, Stymie schools received more than 40,000 notifications from concerned students, empowering them to use their empathy and conscience to report harm, and further a culture of care in their schools.
Australian of the Year awards
Each year our nation celebrates the achievements and contributions of eminent Australians through the Australian of the Year Awards by profiling leading citizens who are role models for us all.
They inspire us through their achievements and challenge us to make our own contribution to creating a better Australia.
The Awards honour an exceptional group of highly respected Australians who ignite discussion and change on issues of national importance.
The Australian of the Year Awards provides everyone with the opportunity to recognise any Australian who makes them proud.
The four Australian of the Year categories are:
Australian of the Year
Senior Australian of the Year (those aged 65 years or over)
Young Australian of the Year (ages 16 to 30)
Australia's Local Hero
The Awards operate at two levels - State/Territory and national.
State and Territory selection committees select four nominees for each Award category, with one of these nominees being announced as the State/Territory Award recipient.
The National Australia Day Council Board selects the Australians of the Year from the group of 32 State and Territory recipients.
The prestigious year-round program culminates in the announcement of the National Award recipients in Canberra on Australia Day Eve.
For more information on the Australian of the Year Awards, read about the history of how recipients are chosen:
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