A NEW pack of Bulldogs is stepping up in communities across the Central Highlands region. Ballarat is the latest to boast graduates from Western Bulldogs Leadership Project, an intense six-month youth leadership and development program.
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Participants are among 120 young people in western Victoria to take up the challenge, including 20 in the Hepburn, Pyrenees and Golden Plains shires who graduated last week.
The Bulldogs-led program, for young people aged 14-16, promoted team-building exercises, mentoring from respected industry leaders, coaching course and visits to AFL and AFLW matches.
Participants worked on a number of initiatives like a breast cancer fundraiser involving selling personally designed t-shirts, a social enterprise called Socks of the West (a project stemming from last year’s Ballarat program) and a mass sleep out at Ballarat’s Mars Stadium to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness in the region.
Leadership Project program manager Jenna Browne, said participants used the skills they learnt in their leadership training to work on a social issue they were passionate about, like homelessness, bullying and health.
This is the third year the Bulldogs have run the Leadership Project in Ballarat, having expanded into Hepburn, Ararat, Stawell, the Pyrenees and Golden Plains last year.
Graduation celebrates how participants have connected, contributed and grown as leaders in our community and their potential to keep developing as leaders post-program.
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