The Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) is a scholarship and workshop awarded to high school students in their junior year.  The program is designed to prepare students for leadership roles in their senior year and beyond. The International RYLA was actually started by Rotarians in Australia in the early 1950s.  At Camp RYLA students learn about themselves from different viewpoints, including the speakers, volunteer Rotarians and especially by interacting with other scholarship winners.

Students are interviewed and carefully selected for potential leadership and diversity.  This year the Arcadia Rotary Club sent students from Arcadia, Temple City and Arroyo High Schools.  Our students were Hanna Au, Bridget Yu, Lauren Awaya, Jenny Wu, Cecilia Lee, Daniel Lam, Ryan Wong, William Wang and our Rotary exchange student from Spain, Asier Goikoetxea-Zabala.

Our RYLA students ran the club meeting today, first fining President Hoey for getting married, then Sam Falzone for leading the flag assembly for the upcoming field of Valor, beginning May 20.  On the bus ride up to camp, the students begin playing games that let them get to know each other, followed by more organized “Icebreakers” and then workshops and excellent speakers.

Some of the lessons & takeaways from the weekend:

  • Having fun by hugging and dancing
  • Working together and bonding within “cities”
  • Misplacing your phone or other items required that you dance in front of others to regain the item
  • Open Mic for speeches, comedy
  • Learning what is my be like to be handicapped by being blindfolded and forced to find others that share your birthday month, but they can’t speak
  • Sharing what you want others to know about being female
  • Egg drop challenge using limited resources
  • Moral decisions in leadership
  • How cheating and lying hurts everyone
  • Overcoming challenges and obstacles

Asier was asked to give a speech to the entire RYLA group and this really tested his confidence and courage.  Each student expressed that they learned more about themselves and about leadership during this great weekend.