The Paul Ramsay Foundation has named five leaders as recipients of its 2026 Fellowship Program, supporting community-led work aimed at reducing disadvantage across Australia.

The 18-month fellowship provides each recipient with up to $250,000 to pursue work aligned with self-determining First Nations communities, better life paths for children and young people, and stronger connected communities.

Nyikina and Bunuba woman Janine Dureau, from Derby in the West Kimberley, has been selected for work focused on First Nations women-led Kimberley nation rebuilding.

Her fellowship will support the development of a Kimberley Nation Rebuilding Framework, co-designed with Kimberley women leaders and Elders, to strengthen cultural governance, healing-led leadership and conflict transformation.

Ms Dureau said the fellowship would support work communities had been calling for over many years.

"I am deeply honoured and humbled to be selected as a recipient of the Paul Ramsay Foundation Fellowship," Ms Dureau said.

"To be recognised alongside such incredible leaders from across the country is something I do not take lightly.

"This fellowship represents more than an individual achievement - it is an opportunity to continue advancing the work our communities have been calling for over generations: healing-informed leadership, stronger governance, relational accountability, and true self-determination grounded in culture, community and collective responsibility."

Ms Dureau said her fellowship journey would focus on the conditions needed to support long-term reform and stronger futures.

"My fellowship journey will focus on the development of the Kimberley Nation Rebuilding Framework - a whole-of-community approach centred on human readiness, relational safety and decision-making conditions needed to support long-term reform and stronger futures for our people," she said.

"I carry this opportunity with deep gratitude to my family, Elders, mentors, communities, partners and all those who have walked alongside me over many years."

The 2026 cohort also includes Jeanette Pope, Levi-Joel Tamou (Kuku Yalanji), Monica McKenzie (Dharawal and Yuin) and Todd Fernando (Wiradjuri and Gomeroi).

Mr Tamou, who leads the Indigenous Futures Foundation, will use his fellowship to deepen work on First Nations food security, food sovereignty and community-led economic participation.

Ms McKenzie, from the La Perouse Aboriginal Community and belonging to the Dharawal and Yuin Peoples, will focus on youth-driven accountability and transformation of out-of-home-care systems.

Mr Fernando will examine truancy in Australia and ways to restore connection and belonging in the education system.

Ms Pope, the founding Director of the Castlemaine Community Investment Co-operative, will explore how regional communities can use co-operative models to own local assets, build wealth and strengthen local decision-making.

She said the fellowship would help progress work already underway in Castlemaine.

"Worst kept secret in the Shire! ... but the Paul Ramsay Foundation have given me a Fellowship to progress the work of the Castlemaine Community Investment Cooperative," Ms Pope said.

"First project off the rank is to write a manual for others about how we bought a $2M building with loans from 330 of our members.

"Thank you PRF. We could not do it without you. And congratulations to the other 4 Fellows who are about to change the world in spectacular ways."

PRF Chief Impact Officer Carolyn Curtis congratulated the fellows and said the program invested in both people and their projects.

"The PRF Fellowship is about investing in the person as much as the project," Ms Curtis said.

"By giving courageous thinkers the space, resources and trust they need to pursue ideas that can shift systems and create lasting change, we can uncover new pathways to a future where people and places have what they need to thrive.

"I'm energised by the commitment of these Fellows and their passion for changing the conditions that hold disadvantage in place."

The 2026 fellows reflect the kind of community-led ideas needed to create lasting change across Australia.