Camooweal's only police officer, Sergeant Amit Singh, has converted the bottom storey of his own house to open a free gym for locals.
There are no public exercise facilities in the tiny Queensland town, just 13 kilometres from the Northern Territory border.
Sergeant Amit Singh said he was partly inspired by his own upbringing in Fiji, where he could not afford to use the local martial arts gym.
"I didn't have the money to train so I was sitting outside," he said.
Giving back
When Sergeant Singh was growing up in the rural jungle of Fiji, he said his family lived in poverty and it was because of the kindness of one stranger that he began taking fitness seriously.
On school holidays, Sergeant Singh would travel to Suva to stay with his aunt, and would spend his days sitting outside the taekwondo studio there.
"I kept going to this place, and the trainer was this Korean man. He asked me to come inside and train and I said 'well I don't have the money'," he said.
"He said if I come inside and do exactly what he asked me, I could train for free."
Sergeant Singh went on to compete for Fiji in taekwondo, while also representing the country in soccer.
"My father always said to me 'it's good to play a sport, but you have to finish your school because that's what puts food on the table'," he said.
"But you know what, I got contracted out to Australia to play soccer, so it did pay, but I kept studying and that's why I became a police officer."
Sergeant Singh said when he arrived in Camooweal, he realised the locals had nowhere to get fit, and no one to teach them good habits.
It was then that he arranged to have gym equipment donated and transformed the bottom storey of his home into a gym.
Now he has groups of people arrive most afternoons to train with him and learn about nutrition.
Sergeant Singh has recently put together a community group who will work together to get funding to build a shed in town for gym equipment and basketball hoops.
He said the Mount Isa City Council have promised him land to build on, and he is now working to get the project underway.
Turning a life around
Growing up in rural Queensland, no one spoke to Leslie Jacob about the risks of diabetes.
Both his parents have the disease which is increasingly prevalent in Indigenous communities — and Camooweal has a high Indigenous population.
After meeting Sergeant Singh and starting training in June, Mr Jacob has so far lost a little over 10 kilograms.
But better than that, he said the small town's nurse is impressed to see his diabetes indicators are on the drop.
"I never been diagnosed with diabetes, but my parents are diabetic so I'm trying to get in shape and fit to beat it," he said.
"I'm halfway there, the nurse at the local clinic here got a bit of a shock when he got my results because he usually sees the results go higher not lower."
Mr Jacob said he would like to see more education about health and fitness in local Indigenous communities.
"I struggled in the past few years, especially with my weight and it's no good for your health," he said.
"It's really hard to turn your life around sometimes.
"You've got to make that really hard decision to be motivated to keep going forward.
"I'm a lot more mature now and I understand it a lot more. I didn't understand it younger."
Mr Jacob's next goal is to complete a walk from Camooweal to the Northern Territory border in December with Sgt Singh and other locals who train with him.
The walk is 13 kilometres and temperatures in Camooweal in December last year reached maximums of 44 degrees.
