Shoalhaven City Council candidate Takesa Frank hopes to give voice to young people

Hailing from Shallow Crossing on the border of the Shoalhaven, Takesa is a young Indigenous woman hoping to represent the voice of young locals when she runs under the Shoalhaven Greens in the September 4 election.

"Just over a quarter of the Shoalhaven population is under 25. But the youngest councillor is 32, so there's a big gap," she said.

"I want to run for council so that we have a voice of young people on council.

"I've always been passionate about creating change in the community and then I started working with some local councillors on issues. One day one of them said, 'you could just run for council, we need more young people.'"

Motivated by her mentors, Takesa said her passion for helping the community has outweighed any doubts for taking up space as a woman in council. She also hopes to see a change to the "men's club" behaviour in council.

"I grew up with my inspiration being (Shoalhaven Mayor) Amanda Findley and she's a woman doing absolutely amazing things for the Shoalhaven," Takesa said.

"But then also on the other side of that we've seen the toxic environment that can happen in some Shoalhaven Council meetings.

"I guess you can always second guess yourself for doing something. Someone once asked me, 'how are you going to put up with those men on the council?' But at the end of the day, my passion outweighs that insecurity. And that's why I've chosen to run for council.

"But I'm hoping that maybe the environment will change after this election, that the community will see that the current council isn't working very well, because of the alleged bullying that's occurring.

"And they [the community] will use their vote wisely to help change that."

Graduating from Ulladulla High School in 2019, Takesa said she has "always tried to make change" where she could.

"Since year nine, I was in the Student Environmental Council and then I was school captain," she said.

"I ended up getting rid of plastic water bottles from the school because I've seen the pollution created at local beaches, and especially because we're a school on the beach, we really have to look after our environment around us."

She also helped establish the South Brooman State Conservation Group, when state forestry started logging Brooman after the disastrous 2019-20 bushfires.

"It was destroying the environment even more after the fires, so we started the group to get the forestry to stop logging. We ended up getting a stop work order, which is very rare," she said.

"In that role, I got to go up to the state parliament and meet with the Members of Parliament to talk about the issue, which was a really good experience."

Currently in Sydney's lockdown while she looks after her grandfather, Takesa is also undertaking a Bachelor of Geography, minoring in Indigenous Studies.

"There are definitely a lot of young people that want to get out of town, and a lot of people have to leave for work or university," she said.

"But I love the Shoalhaven. I grew up in it and I live in the middle of the bush down here, surrounded by trees and the Clyde River which is one of the cleanest rivers in NSW.

"And once you fall in love with something you can't really leave. That's why I want to help create a childhood that the next generation of people can also have. And the way we're going with the environment, that potentially may not happen.

"I want to help ensure that the next generation can experience the beautiful environment I got to grow up in."

First on her agenda, Takesa would like to see Shoalhaven Council declare a climate emergency.

"In year 12 when I was still at high school, we first put the motion forward to council and I spoke to the motion at the meeting. It didn't get through, and we've put it up three times since then," Takesa said.

"Every time it hasn't gone through, however, it's such an important motion that we've seen lots of councils do, including Wollongong council.

"It creates this platform where everything that goes through council has to think about climate change, which then means they're thinking about their future generations. And I think that's really important."

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