Fast-forward more than 50 years later and the former sexual discrimination commissioner is doing just that – after she took up the post of the new chief executive officer of outreach service Rural Alive and Well.

“I was retired – I’d retired in May last year and was having a lot of fun reading books, travelling, people ask me a lot why I’m here but it’s because I’m a country girl,” Ms Little said.

“One of the things that you always remember, growing up on a farm, is the absolute force of nature. All of the things that are happening now to our farmers, I lived it, I grew up with it.”

The lure of the position with Rural Alive and Well was too much to resist and, three weeks in, Ms Little has had her hands full assisting the rural sector as they navigate drought, the impacts of bushfires, the drop in dairy price and, more recently, floods.

“My parents were both soldiers and they got a settler’s block in New South Wales but we lost our first house in the 1952 Tuggerah River floods,” she said.

Despite working as a sexual discrimination commissioner and as a public servant in a previous life, Ms Little said the resilience of the country community was something that always stuck out to her as a hallmark of why she should return.

“All the RAW people were so ‘can-do’ and they were helping farmers through the hardest of times, so, in that way, that did tempt me,” she said.

“It is hard times for farmers at the moment, but also for organisations that are trying to help people.”

Ms Little moved to Tasmania 33 years ago after working in New South Wales and London.

She moved to the island state to raise her son and never left, working as a lecturer at the University of Tasmania, with the state government and more recently as the sexual discrimination commissioner. 

“I’ve always loved country life, farmers have a different view of life than you do in the cities, they are always so resilient,” she said.

The power of nature is what brings a rural community together and being part of that was important, Ms Little said.

“I just wanted to recognise the strength of the rural community, the way that they always pull together.”

RAW was established by a group of farmers eight years ago in response to a large number of suicides that was the result of economic downturn in the state. 

RAW  is a not-for-profit organisation helping individuals, families and the community through mental health issues with a focus on suicide prevention. 

RAW’s outreach program is available 24/7 and outreach workers are now available in all regions of Tasmania.

“I don’t like to think about it as like mental health, it’s about people who are dealing with trauma and how do they recover from that,” Ms Little said.

She said despite being very busy, she has enjoyed her first few weeks in the new role, particularly with her dealings with the region’s farmers.

“There’s such a sense of ownership over RAW, it was started by farmers and that shows in the community, they see they own it and that is great,” she said.

“When I started I was going into the farms and the best thing I heard is that so many people come up to me to claim that they were a part of setting up RAW and that’s fabulous.”

The impact of the floods and the recent crash in dairy prices are the two main issues currently affecting farmers, according to Ms Little.

“With the dairy prices, it’s not so much the crash but it is the debt they’ve been left with, that they somehow have to find the money to pay back what they’ve already been paid,” she said.

In addition, the impact of the floods will be long-lasting. “People can’t sleep in their beds at night if it rains because of the fear, they are afraid it will happen all over again.”

Ms Little said her focus and that of RAW’s was to help farmers to help themselves through times of trauma and to help them with healing.

“It’s not about building strong communities, it’s about giving country people the tools to help themselves but to be there while they do it,” she said.

However during her tenure, she said she wanted to focus on improving access to services for the ageing rural population.

“Tasmania’s population is ageing but there are still few services that assist people to keep people at home,” she said.

“The rural community only works when there are agricultural people still in it.”

She also said she wanted to assist RAW’s financial situation and secure more adequate and secure funding for the organisation.

RAW’s impact on the community is long-lasting, they are there through the tough times and see it through, Ms Little said outreach workers were still working in Dunalley after the bushfires in 2013.

RAW has outreach workers available in all regions of Tasmania, including the islands. To access the service contact 1300 HELP MATE (1300 4357 6283).

Agriculture reporter Caitlin Jarvis wants to celebrate the success of Tasmania’s rural women and will be running the Women in Agriculture series in the coming weeks. To nominate a rural woman email caitlin.jarvis@fairfaxmedia.com.au or via her Facebook page.