Motivational speaker, award winning mentor and Y Mag founder Shar Moore is in Dubbo to help local residents find their true purpose in life.
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Ms Moore was the guest of honour at a special breakfast held at the Dubbo RSL on Friday, which was hosted by the Dubbo Chamber of Commerce.
Approximately 70 people attended the morning event.
At the breakfast she spoke about her life as a young Indian girl growing up in Thailand and how at just 11-years-old she became engaged to a man nine years her senior.
Thanks to her late Australian step-father, who she describes as her “closest friend”, Shar was able to change the course of her life.
“He just looked at me, and asked the question which literally changed the rest of my life, and said “Is this what you want?” and I burst into tears because I had never been asked my opinion before, as an Indian girl you just do what you’re told…,” Shar said.
“I finally got the words and I said “No”.. and I realised this was my chance to change my future.”
Because of that, Shar was able to travel around the world, has been happily married for 25 years to her husband Russ, and is a mother to three wonderful kids.
“I knew if someone gave me the opportunity to shine I could,” she said.
Shar, Russ and their daughter are currently travelling around Australia in a caravan for three weeks as part of the ‘Y July’ roadtrip.
Shar speaks all over the world, but during the current regional tour, which is a 2094 kilometre journey, she hopes to ask people “what is your y (purpose)?”
“Even if people are alive it doesn't mean they’re living.. they’re just existing, going through the motions every single day.. they don’t realise this is the one life you get and any of us could go at any time,” she said.
Shar’s Y is to provide young children with opportunities.
Having lived through a traditional engagement at the age of 11, Shar understands first-hand how a dictated life and the path forward, can be completely out of your hands.
So during this roadtrip, Shar aims to raise money for Project Rani.
The project gives girls in India the opportunity to attend school and prevents them becoming child brides.
Shar hopes to raise a total of $100,000 which will go towards education, transport, food and hygiene for these young women.
“Everything we’re doing (on the roadtrip) is for Project Rani,” Shar said.
“One in 100 girls go to school in India. The other 99 go on the street as beggars, into the sex trade or they get married really young.
“We believe education is the answer, if we can educate them then the girls have got a choice...”
On July 22, Shar is also asking everyone around the nation to come together for the inaugural ‘YJuly’ Day, and ask each other, “So, what’s your Y?”.
The idea is similar to ‘R U OK Day, Shar said, as it aims to ask people what their purpose is.
“The idea is to get some people together meet up and ask each other ‘so what’s your Y?,” she said.
“We just want people to stop – and even if they don’t know the answer to what their purpose is – it’s going to make them start to ask the question.
“Something might shift for them and they’ll ask themselves what their purpose is.”
Once Shar and her family are back in their hometown state of Queensland, they will hold a Guinness World Record attempt on July 22 to create the largest human Y at the Burleigh Bears oval.
“The current record is 250 people so we need 251 to win the record,” she said.