Vocational Service

Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA)

Each year, thousands of young people around the world take part in the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) program worldwide.

RYLA aims to:

• Demonstrate Rotary's respect and concern for youth;
• Provide an effective training experience for selected youth and potential leaders;
• Encourage leadership of youth by youth; and

In our province, young people from our high schools, chosen for their leadership potential, attend an all-expenses-paid 4 day retreat at Burry Heights on the Salmonier Line over the Easter holidays. They discuss leadership and learn those skills through practice. The highly interactive sessions include teambuilding, communications, personality development, entrepreneurship, meeting challenges, testing their limits and other activities designed to allow participants to safely "check out" their own limitations and aspirations in a supportive and inspirational environment. During one of the evening meals, our Club conducts a regular weekly Rotary meeting and we have the participants take on the various roles that Rotarians take on every week. Additionally, during this time, we have a prominent Rotarian speak to the participants about Rotary and the exciting international and local projects in which we are involved.

2004 was Northwest's 4th RYLA with students participating from all over the province. We promote the program through provincial high schools and applicants are required to complete a comprehensive application and obtain a recommendation of support from a teacher. Those chosen are responsible for finding their way to Burry Heights and Northwest then picks up the cost of accommodation, meals, facilitation, prizes, awards etc. for the event.

The benefits of RYLA to the student participants are immeasurable and we have watched (and heard about) young people who, as a result of the interactions that occurred during RYLA, blossomed in so many ways during the experience.

We are encouraging Rotary Clubs in our province to support their youth leaders by supporting their travel to the event and inviting them to your club meeting to report on their experience.

If you'd like to apply for RYLA 2005, contact John Harnett, Project Coordinator at john.harnett@cna.nl.ca.

For more information on the International event: http://www.rotary.org/programs/ryla/index.html