2026 Rural Women’s Award Finalist Kristie Ivone is building belonging through language

A pot of green tea sits at 2026 Rural Women’s Award Finalist Kristie Ivone’s elbow, a curl of steam escaping from its spout. In the quiet of her kitchen before her three children wake for the day, Kristie takes a moment of gratitude. Life’s ordinary moments are made sacred following a health scare. For Kristie, who still undergoes treatment for breast cancer nearly three years after her diagnosis, this remains the silver lining of her disease.

“The gift of cancer is the perspective of how precious and fleeting life is,” the 38 year old says. “I was safe and healthy and active, but I thought the rest would take care of itself. But you’ve got to be really intentional about your health.”

The green tea, local brew Yarra Valley Tea, grown near Kristie’s home in Albury Wodonga on the New South Wales and Victoria border – is a 20 year habit born from her time teaching English in China as an 18 year old.

“It was the first time I’d ever been overseas. It was one of the best years of my life. It’s where I also realised, I love teaching.”

At 19, Kristie moved to Italy, working at a language school in Giussano. It was a chance to connect with her father’s family roots and further develop her love of teaching languages.

“I just loved that it was this window out of your own world and into somebody else’s. Learning language is challenging – it really makes your brain work hard. And that makes people come alive. It connects people.”

On an Easter holiday visiting friends in England, a chance meeting on a train proved a sliding doors moment. Hearing another Australian accent, Kristie struck up a conversation with fellow passenger Andrew and the pair kept in touch over email.

Kristie then moved to Melbourne at 21 to study International Relations at Deakin University and work for the Department of Home Affairs. After a stint working in Brazil and Mexico, Kristie and Andrew met up again some five years later – somewhat appropriately in China town. Over dumplings and fried ice cream, the friendship shifted to love.

In 2017 when Andrew and Kristie’s first child, Tiana was six months old, the couple moved to Albury Wodonga, chasing the country community Kristie cherished from her own childhood so much. An hour’s drive to Kristie’s family’s Angus beef property in Victoria’s Whorouly South, Albury Wodonga proved the perfect community to welcome two more children – seven year old Oscar and Emilia, 5.

“Emilia was two when I received my cancer diagnosis in 2023. I was in bed reading, when I felt a shooting pain in my breast and felt a lump,” Kristie explains. “My treatment started within a fortnight of being diagnosed. I was scared, of course. The treatment ahead of me was brutal. But I also felt hopeful. I was determined I was not going to leave my children without a mother.”

Treatment included rounds of chemotherapy, hormone therapy, a bilateral mastectomy, and the removal of Kristie’s ovaries. It was during this time Kristie started advocating for the total banning of genetic discrimination in life insurance, with legislation finally passed in early 2025.

“I had gone to look at genetic testing in my early 20s because of a family history with cancer and was warned about the insurance implications. It was a real deterrence,” she says. “My children are now in a much more protected position, able to find out their risk without any negative financial consequences.”

Escaping to the family farm to recover from chemotherapy, Kristie started to think of the different paths of her life and how they might come together. Sitting under a large eucalypt in her mother’s lush garden, a seed of an idea was planted.

“It was the thread of language school in Italy; it was the thread of my work with migration policy and realising how many amazing migrants are underemployed. It was the thread of living in a regional community that didn’t have anywhere to go to learn languages.”

While Kristie recovered, she started to work on a pilot program to run English and Spanish courses out of Albury’s library in late 2024.

“It was important to me that the teachers were native speaker migrants. They can bring a cultural context which is really enriching for students.”

Local enthusiasm was instant, and the Boas Language Academy was born. In just two years, the academy has run 37 language courses with 14 migrant teachers, including Arabic, Spanish and Italian, for almost 100 children and adults.

“There’s a lot of messaging out there about migrants, which is mostly wrong and really damaging. Migrants are so often talented, with amazing skills who are seeking the opportunity to contribute,” Kristie says. “At Boas, we see our real work as building a sense of belonging for everyone in the community.”

Kristie was the recent winner of the 2026 NSW/ACT AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award. The $15,000 grant will allow Kristie to run pilot programs outside Albury Wodonga. She believes the social enterprise could be scaled across Australia, turning language from a barrier to a bridge.

“We’re talking with community groups, preschools and schools. You can start learning language at any age, but the younger children start learning, the easier they learn.”

Now with her cancer treatment in hand, Kristie’s life is filled with purpose. Around her family, she focuses on how she can shape her community for the better, keeping healthy and cherishing the people who have continually shown up through a challenging three years.

“I would never wish cancer on anybody, but it’d wrong to say that there’s not some good that can come out of it. One is the eternal gratitude I have for all the amazing people in my life.”