Young community leaders and young people with strong family military connections are encouraged to apply for this year’s Kokoda Youth Leadership Challenge (KYLC).

Orange Ex-Services’ Club is once again looking to sponsor two participants to take part in this year’s Challenge, which involves completing the gruelling 10-day trek across the original Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea.

“It’s definitely a hard challenge, but something that will probably change your life in a lot of different ways,” said 2018 participant Angus Dunne about his experience on the Kokoda Trail.

“We gained a lot more appreciation of what it would have been like physically and mentally. It is probably the toughest challenge I've ever had, but it was s such a good experience. From getting ready for it and training for four or five months and then to actually do it and you come off the back of it with a lot of confidence.”

Orange Ex-Services’ Club is offering two local young people (between 17 and 25 years of age) the opportunity to participate in a trek across the Kokoda Trail. An opportunity to develop personal leadership skills based on discipline, mutual respect, trust, mateship, courage and self-sacrifice.

The selected participants must commit to a rigorous physical training program to ensure they are physically capable of completing the trek in September.

For Angus, it was the challenge of the trek that caused him to apply, as well as the opportunity to learn more about the experience of Australian soldiers on the Kokoda Trail.

“I wanted to challenge myself and see how I went with it and the whole experience was amazing,” he said.

“Charlie, who led us, he had extensive knowledge about the campaign and gave us really in-depth briefings on different parts of the trail, what had happened, why it had happened, and it really made us appreciate the conditions and what had happened.

“And doing the Dawn Service and having the locals sing to us was pretty amazing!”

Applications for the Kokoda Youth Leadership Challenge close at 5pm on Tuesday 30 April 2019.

You can find further information about how to apply on the Orange Ex-Services’ Club website: oesc.com.au/kokoda