Naomi Moran is the general manager of the Lismore-based Koori Mail, the country's only newspaper managed and owned by Indigenous Australians. Her particular passion is for providing employment pathways for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls and women stemming from her own experiences as a youngster frustrated in the education system and eventual success.

I'm originally from the area. My family lived at Cabbage Tree Island so I have a strong connection to the Ballina area. We also have family connections to Kempsey, which is Dunghutti country. So I’m very proud to be both done Dunghutti and Bundjalung.

I've also always had a strong connection to the Lismore area. I went to Goonellabah Public School and then did half a year at Kadina High School before we moved back to Ballina. My mum always worked in the Lismore area in the community health space, so we were always back and forth between Ballina and Lismore, depending on her work commitments.

I grew up being supported by family members that had really great work ethics like Uncle Digby Moran, that's my mum's brother, and my mum had an amazing work ethic too. She was a single mum but always managed to work and provide for us.

I was at school until grade 10. I hadn't even completed my year 10 certificate when I left.

I really struggled in the school system, more socially and finding my place in the school environment as a young Aboriginal person. I found that I would thrive more when I was in a class filled with my cousins and my family members, but when I did well academically I was put in different classes where I kind of felt isolated. I felt like "I'm here, but why can' the rest of my mob come with me?"

Back in those days there wasn't the support I see now within the school systems to help Indigenous students create pathways and to stay engaged in school.

I really loved learning, just not particularly in that environment. I'd go home every day and say to mom that I wanted to quit school. She said, “Well, you've got two choices. You either stay in school or you get a job.” So I decided that I was going to get a job.

Not long after that, the general manager of the Koori Mail at the time put a call out to schools in the area for any young Aboriginal girls looking to do a trainingship. My school was contacted and I put my hand up straight away because I wanted to get out of school so badly. They asked me to come do a work trial, I think it was for a day or two, and then they offered me a position. I had just turned 14.

On April 20, 1998, I quit school, signed out of grade 10, and signed up for my first day of the working world.

At that time the Koori Mail was located over in Magellan Street, across from the Mecca Cafe. I remember going there and after a day thinking, what have I done? We didn't have computer classes in those days - that makes it sound pretty ancient, but we didn't - and when they set me in front of a computer at the Koori Mail I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't even know how to turn it on.

My job was to do all the things that nobody wanted to do: change the toilet rolls, make the cups of tea, do the photocopying, the filing, all that type of stuff.

It was supposed to be a 12-month traineeship and I ended up staying at the Koori Mail for 10 years, until 2008.

As much as I wanted to stay with the paper, at the end of my first stint there I was 25 and I'd never left my community, never left my family. That was the next challenge that I had to face. I thought if an opportunity presents itself, I'll take it.

I was on a little long service leave holiday for about two or three weeks and I got a phone call from NITV, the National Indigenous Television Station saying, “we'd like you to come work for us”. So I took that opportunity, packed up my car and drove down to Sydney and started working at NITV.

I was mainly working in the communications department focusing on supporting their publicists with press releases, marketing and promotions and working on various productions when I could. In those days they were kind of just getting on their feet I was able to just pretty much chip in doing a lot of different things, and I really enjoyed that.

I'd already decided that I wanted to stay in Indigenous media and so I was learning anything that I could to support that pathway. Being able to travel to different communities as well throughout those times has contributed to my understanding of not just myself as an Aboriginal person but also how all our communities are a very different, even though we all have the same issues and struggles.

I was at NITV for two years and then I got a phone call from my mum. My mum's sister had passed away. She didn't have any children of her own and she was really close to all of us kids. That kind of really shattered me and the realization that I'd been away from home a bit too long kind of hit me.

So again, I packed up and came back up this way. I was offered a position to work with the National Indigenous Radio Service, in Brisbane. I was really excited and happy to take that on, again following my chosen pathway in Indigenous media but through another platform.

Throughout all this time since I had left school, there had been opportunities for me to kind of give back to either schools or to individual young people based on my experiences with struggling in school. I'd often get phone calls to go and spend time with students, particularly at Ballina High School or the high schools here, to participate in mentoring programs and kind of share my experiences.

I think it was after about maybe a year at the radio service when I was presented with an opportunity to do that full time as an Indigenous program officer within the Gold Coast Titans Beyond Tomorrow program.

The program was basically an arm of the football club specifically to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and communities that was very much supported by the legacy of Preston Campbell at the club. We did some really great work with students not just in the Gold Coast and Brisbane areas but also Mornington Island and Doomadgee. We'd have students come down for camps and we focused on how can we engage them in employment and training opportunities.

Then in 2015, I just felt like I needed to come home - I don't know why to this day - and the YWCA gave me the opportunity to develop a program supporting young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls and women, again with creating employment and training pathways, but also focusing on the obstacles and challenges for our young girls and women to achieve their employment and training goals.

They'd asked me to take a look at a program structure that they had already had that I needed to kind of work to, but at the same time, I had the freedom to change that according to how I felt it should be delivered in the most culturally appropriate and effective way in the area. I then spoke to my uncle Charles about giving it a name and he helped me name the program

Ngalingah's Mijung Dubais, which means our happy women.

So I put to them a program that's specific to working with young Aboriginal girls and women in this area and they said yes and offered funding for 12 months.

The program is still going today which is really exciting and something that I'm really proud of and I’m really grateful to the YWCA for realizing the program was important and very much needed.

Then in 2016 I got a phone call from the general manager or the Koori Mail, Steve Gordon, who had been general manager for over 20 years - he was my first boss - and he said he was ready to move on.

I guess the board had faith that I knew the business back to front and that I was capable of not just taking on the role, but also learning along the way. I wasn't all that confident in taking on such a big role at a youngish age but I accepted the position and started back here in the role of general manager in April, 2016, exactly 18 years to the month since I’d first started here in 1998. So yeah guess that’s going full circle, whatever you call it.

Once I kind of found my feet here, I began to look at ways that I could not just fulfil my role in terms of business operations but what could I bring to the Koori Mail that's never been considered before in terms of opportunities for the Koori Mail to expand as an Aboriginal business and support employment and training opportunities or generate other income streams.

So something I've been working on over the past three years is making sure that the Koori Mail has the opportunity to reach its full potential as an Indigenous business. Even though we're focused on still delivering the beautiful product that is the newspaper, and being a well respected and well run Indigenous media service we’re also considering how can we support the community with employment and training opportunities as an organization.

For example, this year's the first year that we've got a school based traineeship program off the ground. It's never happened before. I feel that it's our responsibility to support our young people with employment opportunities - obviously that's my passion and experience - and give back to the community what was given to me, 21 years ago.

So we will commence that in the next few weeks where we'll take on to high school students and they will come out of it with a Certificate III in Business Administration after a one or two year period. I'm really excited that we get to work with these young people and kick off this new program. I feel that we're the right people here in this organization to support them through that.

So yeah, it's been quite a ride. If I can say anything, it’s that I that my purpose isn't just to move the Koori Mail forward in my role as general manager. I still very much feel that my purpose is to contribute to community in any way that I can, as long as I can.

Whether it is still continuing to work with our youth or to work with non-Indigenous people or non-Indigenous organizations about how to best work with our people to provide that support. I feel there's there's still and always will be a level of cultural responsibility that I have as an individual to the communities that that I'm surrounded by.

I think that's always been my mentality. The more that I achieve and succeed, it means the more potential there is for my community and other individuals to achieve and succeed. That's what I'm really trying to focus on. It's never been just about me. It's about everybody else too.