Enabling Pathways is a not for profit community organisation in Far North Queensland that empowers young people, families, and people with disabilities.
We provide compassionate, culturally informed, and client centered support across our Youth, Care, and Community programs. Our mission is to create safe and inclusive environments that foster healing, connection, wellbeing, and growth so every individual can realise their potential and contribute to a stronger community.
"Empowering Lives, Enabling Futures"
At Enabling Pathways, we are committed to carving out empowering pathways in life for all our participants. Through our dedicated divisions - Youth, Care, and Community - we strive to provide safe, nurturing environments, equal opportunities, and holistic support, enabling every individual to realise their goals and positively contribute to society.
Luke Haupapa is the Managing Director of Enabling Pathways and has built a career of more than a decade in community services across Far North Queensland. Over the last five years, he has led organisations as both an executive and CEO, gaining extensive experience in managing child protection, NDIS, and community-based programs. His leadership has focused on strengthening services, building sustainable teams, and ensuring meaningful outcomes for children, families, and communities.
With roots in New Zealand and proud heritage as a member of the Ngāti Mutunga tribe, Luke brings a strong cultural perspective to his leadership. He believes that trust, accountability, health, family, and loyalty are the cornerstones of effective leadership, and these values continue to guide his decision-making and organisational vision.
At Enabling Pathways, Luke is passionate about building partnerships, driving community-led initiatives, and delivering programs that create long-term impact across Far North Queensland. Colleagues and stakeholders value his integrity, cultural insight, and ability to find practical solutions to complex challenges.
Outside of work, Luke enjoys keeping active and spending time with his family, friends, and animals, as well as exploring the outdoors. A guiding philosophy he lives by is to lead with purpose and always leave communities stronger than when he found them.
Pietro Girgenti is the Director of Enabling Pathways’ Community Division and a highly respected Solicitor with extensive experience in Queensland and Victoria. Founder of Girgenti Lawyers in 2009, he expanded the firm to three offices before its sale in 2019. Since re-entering private practice in 2021, Pietro has adopted a referral-only model, specialising in providing tailored legal guidance to businesses and family groups.
At Enabling Pathways, Pietro serves as both Director and Legal Advisor, offering invaluable insight into governance, compliance, and complex legal matters. His leadership extends beyond the Organisation, with roles such as Non-Executive Director at Forever Wild (Global), where he contributes to innovative global conservation efforts, as well as directorships in technology, development and environmental sectors.
Pietro is passionate helping his clients achieve their goals, growing their businesses participating in and benefiting their communities. His colleagues can always count on him for calm strategic thinking, and finding solutions to difficult and unique problems.
Outside of work, Pietro enjoys all things food related, including cooking.
Justin Ericson is a Director at Enabling Pathways, bringing more than 18 years of expertise in finance, tax, and corporate advisory. A Certified Practicing Accountant and graduate of James Cook University Cairns, Justin has built a career spanning corporate recovery, asset protection, and business strategy. His work has supported sectors ranging from property and rural enterprise to international business.
Known for his strategic insights and ability to guide organisations through complex financial landscapes, Justin has also served as a Partner at a leading accounting firm in the Cairns Tablelands. At Enabling Pathways, he contributes not only as a Director but also as a trusted advisor, often working in capacities similar to a Virtual CFO, Chairman, and CEO for various entities.
Justin is passionate about social justice and fairness and provides pro bono services to a significant number of churches and community groups across Queensland. Colleagues can always count on him for sound judgment, rational thinking and practical solutions.
Outside of work, Justin enjoys family, friends and social activities, particularly travel. A fun fact about him is he and his wife are proud parents of an adorable but spoilt rotten cat named Fatty that even has his own social media profile.
Juliana Farelo is the Chief Development Officer at Enabling Pathways, where she leads the Business Development Team to drive growth, foster partnerships, and support scalable operations across the Organisation. With dual Bachelor’s degrees in Business Administration and Tourism Management, and a Master’s in Human Resources, Juliana brings more than a decade of experience in business and HR, including five years as a successful business owner and multiple managerial roles.
Passionate about standardisation, organisational efficiency, compliance, and the smart use of technology, Juliana focuses on building systems and processes that improve daily practices and ensure long-term sustainability. She leads with honesty, respect, and reliability, believing no task is too small and that the best way to earn trust is by working alongside her team. Her motto, “Walk the talk,” reflects her values-driven approach.
Outside of work, Juliana enjoys pickleball, board games, reformer Pilates, and exploring swimming holes and waterfalls around Far North Queensland. Her favourite local escape is Lake Eacham, where she often spends time with her Australian Shepherd and her husband.
Enabling Pathways
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to
Naomi serves as the Chief Operations Officer of Enabling Pathways’ Youth Division, where she oversees the strategic and operational management of our Therapeutic Residential Care Services. With over 20 years of experience in the Youth and Community Services Sector, Naomi brings extensive expertise shaped by a career that includes various executive management appointments. Her professional background is supported by formal qualifications in Community Sector Management and Child, Youth, and Family Intervention.
A strong advocate for trauma-informed care, youth empowerment, and staff development, Naomi believes that safe, supportive environments are essential for young people to heal and thrive. At Enabling Pathways, she plays a pivotal role in leading a dedicated team committed to delivering high-quality, transformative care for young people in Out of Home Care.
Naomi is known for her collaborative and values-driven leadership style. She builds trusted relationships with staff, stakeholders, and government agencies always representing the organisation’s mission with integrity and confidence. Colleagues value her for her consistency, strategic vision, and unwavering advocacy for both young people and the teams who support them.
Her motivation comes from witnessing young people overcome adversity, mentoring the next generation of sector leaders, and contributing to the development of a skilled, compassionate workforce in the care sector.
Outside of work, Naomi enjoys spending quality time with her family and friends, taking day trips, and planning her next holiday adventure.