Rotary Youth Leadership Awards(District 7980) May 12-14 at Camp Hazen

Rotary Youth Leadership Awards Is a conference for high school students. Our District holds two RYLAs per year at Camp Hazen. We had 83 students at our RYLA on May 12-14. The conference is student run by student directors and about 20 .trained student facilitators. The goal of the conference is to provide the attendees with leadership skills which will help them in their lives.

At the beginning the students prepare a banner and a cheer which is a way to get them to work together and learn a bit on how to lead in a group of strangers.



Here you can see the student directors at the front of the room teaching the attendees about leadership and what skills are needed to be a good leader.

Many of the activities give the attendees a chance to talk to a large group of other attendees. This gives them a chance to practice public speaking and to also share some of their own thoughts.




At this RYLA an award was given to an Interact club which has been running for 40 years. The
Joseph A Foran High School Interact Club in Milford, CT.

The students work in groups of 6-8 to prepare a proposal for a service project. Each group makes a short presentation and every attendee does a part of the presentation. A group of Rotarian judges then chooses one or more projects for funding. At this RYLA three projects were chosen for funding by four eminent Rotarians.