Families in these towns are doing it tough. Farmers are stretched to the brink - both financially, physically and emotionally - and spending the majority of each day hand-feeding herds of cattle due to the lack of grass and water.
There has been a lot of talk on the enormous pressures farmers are facing, the impact the drought has had on land and livestock. But what has been missing in the discussion on the ‘Big Dry’ is: How is the drought impacting children?
To address the gap, UNICEF Australia spoke to students in the NSW New England region in schools in Gunnedah, Narrabri, Walgett and Tamworth.
We spoke to young children who had never seen anything but dirt and dust, senior students who were extremely anxious about their futures and boarding students who sometimes preferred to be at school than at home facing the realities of the drought.
In their words, this is what they told us: