Maddy Phillipps - Operation Flinders

Published Jun 18, 2024, 1:47 AM

Matthew Pantelis speaks with Maddy Phillipps, a past-participant in Operation Flinders about her experiences.

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One of the people who has been through the program is Maddie Phillips, who went through as around a fourteen year old. Fifteen year old back in twenty twenty one. Maddie is here with me today, still involved with Operation Flinders. Maddie, good morning, welcome, good morning, Thank you for your time, Thank you for having me. So you were you were quite young. What did you think when you were told you're going on this? Did you have a choice?

Well, it was a choice. I did get offered the opportunity at school. Originally I wasn't part of the eight participants that we're going to go up on not Flinders, but I feel the kids dropped out and the opportunity got given to me. I'm going to say too. When I searched it online, I was expecting greenlands grass.

You get that. It's dead.

It's just rocks, dirts and everything you can imagine, dead bushes. It's definitely not what you search online because it is.

On the I mean, it's in the outback, but it is the verge of the desert as well. Isn't it the very northern part of the Flinders.

Yeah, it's hot, it gets very very hot. Flies.

Yeah, what's winter, like what's next weekend?

Like the weather is, you can't depend on it. It's either going to be super super flooded wet or it's going to be super super dry.

It just depends on what time of the year. Doing.

Okay, so you've you've gone on a ten hour bus trip or whatever, whatever length of the time it took. What was the thought there, Now, have you made the right call?

Still at that stage, Well, well, I got on the bus at four am in the morning. It's definitely considered not going. I was really really worried, nervous, as I said, obviously there's expected green lands and then didn't end up becoming green lands. But once you get there, you start to shock, like you realize, oh my gosh, this we're in the middle of nowhere. Where where are we? Like I have no clue where we are? Am I going to make it out? And then you get off the bus and you've just got these two volunteer team leaders assistant team leader waiting for you, get your pack, put your clothes in, We're gone. We're walking right now, right here, And it's like what, Like I'm trying to still trying to process that I'm in the middle of nowhere.

Like yeah, and you are in the middle of there's no buildings.

There's no buildings, yeah, nothing nothing, just horizon, just a horizon, just rising and mountains and hills and dirt.

Well, and so you start walking and start walking. How's everyone feeling yourself? And everyone the group with you?

Well, with my group, it was only three girls and then five boys, so it was very male dominated. So it was very like walk walk, walk walk. I came with boots that were very broken op Shop. I came with shop boots. So when I was walking through the Flinner's Rangers, the botombs of my souls started to disintegrate, and I also started to get holes in the tops and ductate them together. Oh my god, and it was it was a journey. I got blisters all over my feet. It was really really bad. You can say that.

So okay, first day. And did anyone have regrets at this point?

Oh? Many.

Many of the girls tried to run away, really cried. We have people called sitters that don't want to walk at all.

They stopped.

They see it like I'm not walking anymore. But by the end, everyone's walking, everyone's enjoying their time, start singing songs, capt fire songs.

As you're walking.

That's that's by day eight.

Right by eight, you're pretty much well set to go.

Okay, So day one people sitting and I suppose I've got no choice. It's either or you get left behind.

Exactly.

Well, you don't get left behind, but you have nowhere else to go, like, you can't run anywhere. You're in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, you can't run anywhere like this new where to run.

So at some point I understand over the eight days, you've had an epiphany. The light has gone on.

Yeah, So by I think it was day six seven the day just a couple of days before you leave, you do a mountain climb, which is either Mount Rose or yap Lamora. Some people do Extension Hill, but that's for advanced teams. And I was sitting on top of yat Lamora. And when you go up there this weekend, you'll probably see yat Lamora. They'll explain it to you. But I was sitting on top of yat Lamora and I was eating my musliba food up there, not the best, but I'll take it now. Sitting there and I was I'm thinking and thinking, and it started to rain. It was like spitting and he's reading a story to us, and I'm thinking I'm sitting there, I'm like, oh my God, like my life to be so bad. I grew up in a very bad household, moving town to town, school to school, and I just thought like, this is the moment I want to change my life. I don't want to do something with my life. That's when I decided I wanted to become a paramedic, and I decided to do that. I need to get better grades from I went from a DC student all the way to a straight A student by just having epiphany and changing my mindset.

What so, what made you change your mindset? I'm in the epiphany, I get that. But you're sitting in the rain listening to someone read a story.

But you're just looking at the view, and you've just experienced something that no one ever experiences. You've literally walked one hundred kilometers over eight days. And I was just sitting there and I was just like, if I can do this, if I can walk one hundred kilometers through literally a desert, I'm able to do anything I want.

With my life. This has literally changed my life for the better.

Did others have the same experience, either in your group or in the other groups as you will have.

Yes, Yes, I've heard many, many stories of kids who have gone through Operation Flinders and next thing, you know, change their life completely.

Wow, And what have they done? What sort of like what give us an example?

An example would be like, I know my friend Bella, she said that on her walk she didn't really feel very confident in herself, and then talking to her today, she's been on the news, I believe, and she's also does lots of speeches within off Flinders her confidence flight. And I can say the same for me, like I wouldn't be on the radio right now if it wasn't Front Flinders and tell you that my confidence has peaked since Flinders.

We're not on the radio, We're just in a werehouse chante, Yeah, I know, doing so okay, so paramedics. So now you're an A grade student in year twelve, would you have believed that if somebody said this to you back in twenty one?

No, no way, like I truly believed I was.

I didn't even know where I was going to end up at that point because, as I said previously, like my life wasn't the best and my mom is only a single mum providing for four girls, like it was very very difficult for her. I couldn't go anywhere, I could do anything. So I kind of just had to live off the moment. And that's when Operation Flinders gave me the opportunity to join the Next Step program. And from there I've just explored the whole of essay, something I never thought I would be able to do.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. So what are you doing now? Next Step program? Tell us about that? What's that involved?

So through the Next Step Program, I have got my first AID certificate. I've done a cert to in outdoor recreation. I've also been to Papua New Guinea did the Kakoda track?

How was that?

Oh? It was? It was incredible.

It was amazing something I don't I don't even have words for it, to be honest, I'm loss of words that I still completed that. But again, this was all through Operation Flinders and the opportunities that they provide something I would never never be.

Able to do.

Did you have better boots?

Yes? So that's the thing.

So I'm also a peer group mentor yeh, which means I take others out like other schools that come, and I'm so you have your team leader, assistant team leader, and then peer group mental okay. Peer group mentor is supposed to be a bridge between adults and children, which is what I was. And my boots again shot boots I originally had often as boots, but then they broke because obviously you're doing a lot of water, so they broke, and I still went out and used them out on the field again. My boots got destroyed at the bottoms, the top was falling off sticky tape. And then as I was walking back in and I was eating my breakfast from after the exercise of the camp, a volunteer comes up to me and says, Maddie, I've got a surprise to you. I'm like, oh, well, what it's a surprise. She goes come up to the warehouse with me. So I go up to the warehouse where we store all our stuff, and she pulls out this brand new pair of boots and says, the CEO has brought you a new pair of boots. And then the boots I'm literally wearing right now with me.

They look great, they look comfy, they're amazing, They're ideal for hiking, no doubt about it. Maddie's as the peer group a person on your responsibility, Sierrah, what to help the kids that might want to be the sitters, for instance, to talk to them?

Yeah, I'm also like the communit cater type situations, so if they don't feel comfortable talking to it, they're able to talk to me, and then I can relay that to an adult. Also, having that feeling of another kid who's been on exercise and knows what's going on helps them to understand, well, I'm okay, I'm safe. Another kid's done this. They're here to help me.

Do you talk to them about your light bulb moment?

Ah, Yes I do.

I do say like, by the end of this you'll have this amazing light bulb moment and it'll just be like something you've never experienced. And then I encourage them to go on to do the next Step program because it is incredibly something incredible operations in those offers.

What next? What do you plan to do with up Flinders moving forward?

Wow?

That is a great question, because honestly, Operational Flinners is always offering new opportunities like you wouldn't even expect it. It just comes out the poo. To be honest, I think I'm gonna keep doing more speeches and keep and best shooting for Operation in Flinders, keep talking to people and trying to get them to fundraise, because I can't explain enough how strong this program is that supports young life, my life. I can't keep going. It has changed so much, like completely changed my life.

What do your sisters think of this?

My sister exactly. So originally my sister actually got given the offer few Operation Flinders. She said, no, no, not me, asks my sister. So then my sister was so devastated when she thought, oh my god, Maddi's had all these opportunities and that could have been me. But I was like, no, I took that from you.

So she's missed out. Now, Yeah, I imagine. What about your mum? What does she say about the change in you?

Oh Mom, she's she's in shock. She's incredibly incredibly proud of me. The things I've achieved from Upflanders that leads into my school, my out of life, at work. Everything op Flanders provides me helps me to be a better person than I am today.

So very rewarding. Obviously, you recommend it to any person.

Going in any person, if you get given the offer, don't let it down. That's in any offer in life though. If you get given a life an option, the door opens, opportunity.

Take it.

Yeah, take the opportunity.

Maddie. Great meeting you today. Thank you for the the experience and talking us through that. That light bulb moment. That's just that's that's actually really inspiring. So that's that's really positive. Good on you for realizing that. I suppose and you know, for many of us, we get older and we may have missed that. You know, you just go on on the first door that opens, whether it's a job or select a UNI course or whatever, and it you know, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. But if you've had the you know, the moment to realize it, you know, it's just fantastic. So good on you. Yes, you're up there this weekend.

No, I'm not up there this weekend, but you will see many of my other friends and P group mentors and they'll definitely talk you through it.

Fantastic. Good luck with the rest of you twelve.

Good luck with doing up there.

Thank you, thank you very much, Thank you. I will Maddie Phillips, who is a past participant of Operation Flinder's on the eight day program and then join the Next Step program as you heard, working with young people going through it. She's completed barista training, so you could make me a coffee now, yes, yes, at work fantastic and being as you say the Kakoda track. Good on you, Maddie, wonderful and very inspiring. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Maddie Phillips, my guest