When Jenaya Wolmby swapped the sandy tracks of Aurukun for the busy streets of Brisbane, she experienced what every remote-area boarder feels first – homesickness. The Year 10 student joined the Cape York Leaders Program (CYLP) in Year 7 after watching her brothers succeed on CYLP scholarships.
“I was scared, going from a small community into a big city,” she said. Early on, she discovered a simple remedy: walking. Through walking, she was able to experience this vast new city and get more comfortable; the more she learned about her surroundings, the less homesick she felt. Sport and recreation is her favourite subject, and the weekly excursions that wind through the CBD and along the South Bank riverfront have become her personal reset button. “Walking around the city helps my mental health – it gives me peace and makes the place feel less strange,” she said, adding that South Bank’s skyline view is now her go-to vantage point.
CYLP’s practical support – uniforms, stationery, and regular maths tutoring – has helped Jenaya improve her grades and adjust to life in the city. While homesickness still bites, especially when thinking back to family gatherings at Possum Creek in Aurukun, a favourite freshwater swimming spot just 20 minutes outside Aurukun, she feels more at ease each term at school. To stay connected to her community and Country, she surrounds herself with friends, maintains boarding-school habits like early starts and a tidy room when she’s home and video-calls her grandmother Sarah, who taught her to paint dot-style jellyfish scenes – a painting that now hangs on the walls of the boarding house at Clayfield College.
Sport shapes her future plans. A regular on the local basketball court with her cousins back home and playing on her school’s basketball team, Jenaya aims to study at university and become a basketball coach. Role-modelling already matters to her; each holiday, she rounds up the younger kids in Aurukun and steers them towards work or training “to get them on the right path.”
When asked who inspires her, she points to her brother Wayne – a CYLP alumnus and marathon runner who once completed the New York Marathon – and to Mrs. Harvey, the teacher who “talks to me” when boarding feels hard. Jenaya is finding her stride, proving that confidence grows one step – or one jump shot – at a time.
MORE INFORMATION
For more information visit the Cape York Leaders Program website
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