Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA)
Posted by Gurpreet Randhawa on Feb 15, 2017
Gillian Manson introduced our two speakers: Ben Rutkowski and Saje Volpe who both participated in a leadership training weekend at Camp Qwanoes through the RYLA initiative.
Ben and Saje prepared a powerpoint presentation for the Club with each slide representing a different day at camp.
On the first day of the camp Ben and Saje learned different team building exercises, met with international students and had a presentation about Rotary’s work against Polio. Specifically, there were several group activities and group planning for the week - the leader in the group would take charge and help with organization. International students discussed their experiences going to another country or coming back from an exchange and a touching story was presented by someone who contracted Polio herself years ago.
On the second day of camp, Ben and Saje had the opportunity to listen to a business speaker, a motivational speaker, a nature speaker and participate in an art project. The business speaker discussed a book program to teach others about her Aboriginal heritage – she felt there was misinformation in textbooks used to teach students in Victoria. This speaker also had a sad story – she opened a bakery and worked hard to get loan from the bank in order to open the bakery only to find out a week after it opened that she was allergic to flour when it was air borne. The motivational speaker talked about her time in Brazil as an exchange student. The nature speaker was a photographer who spoke about finding beauty in the little things in life. All of those who participated in the camp also participated in an art program designed to encourage students to create a painting about Rotary.
On the third and final day of camp Ben and Saje enjoyed the t-shirt signing, art unveiling and the jump roping. All of the students who participated in the camp signed each other’s t-shirts and organized a skit for the end of camp to demonstrate the leadership skills. The jump roping was a group activity – Ben and Saje mentioned it was difficult to get everyone to jump at the same time.
Ben and Saje concluded their presentation by thanking the Club for sending them to the camp.