If you walked past Lana Browne on the streets of Bundaberg she would seem like an unassuming Year 9 student, but scratch the surface just a little and you soon realise there is more than meets the eye.
Her karate journey began early 2014.
Like most kids her age she was looking for a sport to take part in, so she dropped into PCYC to try out Bundaberg Ryobu-Kai Karate.
Being of Japanese heritage, her parents were interested in having her involved in an authentic and inclusive martial art that taught traditional sports and self-defence karate.
Lana found her passion and is now a brown belt with dreams of achieving her black belt in 2020.
She has learnt many qualities and skills from karate, including honesty, discipline, respect and integrity and uses them daily to inspire students she helps instruct and her classmates to achieve the best they can.
Earlier this year she took out silver at the Queensland Karate Association state championships in both her categories and was elected as markets coordinator on Bundaberg PCYC’s Youth Management Team.
Lana is heavily interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at school and was recently selected as a CQUni Youth STEM Academy Ambassador.
To further her skill sets she is undertaking her Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award, with plans to complete Silver and Gold levels. To top it off she has applied to attend PCYC’s State Youth Leadership Program at their Leadership Development Centre in Bornhoffen.
When asked about all her numerous achievements Lana stays humble and attributes much of her success to what Karate has taught her.
In the end it just goes to show regional living is no barrier to success, and Lana is a fine example of one of the many youths in Bundaberg following their dreams.
