Tassie fighters in national spotlight of Pride of Australia Awards

FIVE Tasmanian community heroes will take their place on the national stage next month at the Pride of Australia awards.

Pride of Australia awards at the Bellerive Century room picture of child of Courage award winners from left Fletcher and Spencer Connelly

FIVE Tasmanian community heroes will take their place on the national stage next month at the Pride of Australia awards.

Brothers Fletcher and Spencer Connelly are national finalists in the Child of Courage category; their neighbours ­Jenell Walker and Talissa ­Carling-Grey are in the Outstanding Bravery category; Zeehan’s Melissa Crosbie is in the Community Spirit category and; refugee Isaiah Lahai is in the Fair Go category.

Lahai Fayia Isaiah.

The victims of an unspeakable tragedy in 2012 — when they suffered severe burns in a car fire — Fletcher and ­Spencer Connelly showed enormous courage and resilience when they finally went back to school full time this year in Burnie.

READ MORE: PRIDE OF AUSTRALIA WINNERS

They have to have cream applied to their burns at school every day but they remain ­determined to forge ahead with the love of their family, friends and school community.

The Connelly boys owe their lives to Jenell Walker and Talissa Carling-Grey, who were relaxing at home when they heard an enormous ­explosion in a car parked behind a house across the road.

With no thought for their own safety, they dashed across the road, broke through the neighbour’s locked gate to find the car on fire. They dragged Fletcher and Spencer from the flames and tried to keep the boys, aged five and eight at the time, calm as they waited for ambulances to arrive.

Also in the North West, it is difficult to quantify just how much of an impact Melissa Crosbie has had in the small community of Zeehan.

Ms Crosbie runs the local neighbourhood centre and has helped to greatly improve the lives of many, by forming ­numerous groups for the town’s youth, and a “lunch with a mate” program for ­senior citizens.

Melissa Crosbie.

Jenell Walker.

Isaiah Lahai arrived in Tasmania in 2006, having fled the civil war in Sierra Leone and spending 14 years in refugee camps in West Africa.

He is one of three People of Australia Ambassadors in ­Tasmania, served as chairman of the Multicultural Policy ­Review Reference Group, is a former chairman of the Sierra Leone/Liberia Union of ­Hobart, is a founding member of the African Communities Council of Tasmania, and has served in several other key community roles.

Most recently, he has played a leading role in getting medical supplies and other ­donations to Ebola-affected areas of West Africa.

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