About the RYLA Program

The Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) program was officially adopted by Rotary International in 1971, and is one of the most significant and fastest-growing programs of Rotary service. Each year thousands of young people take part in RYLA worldwide. Young people ages 14-30 chosen for their leadership potential attend an all expenses paid seminar, camp, or workshop to discuss leadership skills and to learn those skills through practice. Rotary clubs and districts select participants and facilitate the event's curriculum.

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
• Recognize publicly young people who are rendering service to their communities.

About the District 6220 RYLA Conference

The District 6220 RYLA program consists of an annual RYLA Conference which is hosted and co-facilitated by Camp Manito-wish YMCA in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin. (For more information about Camp Manito-wish, visit www.manito-wish.org).

The RYLA Conference is a three-day training session dedicated to developing young people through the teaching of leadership skills that they can immediately apply in their lives at school, home, and in the community as well as their future personal and professional endeavors. Communication, collaborative leadership, ethics, goal setting, problem solving and conflict management, and other skills and techniques are addressed through the use of outdoor experiential-based activities facilitated by Camp Manito-wish’s trained leadership professionals, Rotarians, and young people who previously attended the conference. These “Student Facilitators” are a key component of the conference as they serve as mentors to their peers and role model the ways in which they can apply what they are learning.

Approximately 80-90 high school sophomores and juniors (including Rotary Youth Exchange students) from around the district attend the RYLA Conference each year.

Conference Activities

The intensive conference schedule is structured around the Manito-wish Collaborative Leadership model which has four stages of development:

• Trust
• Test
• Try
• Transfer

The conference begins with group building and trust. Once groups have a sense of cohesion, they practice the Seven Qualities of a Collaborative Leader through the use of leadership activities designed to create an opportunity for participants to learn from their experiences. These activities range from physical (cooperative games, problem-solving initiatives, challenge course initiatives with high and low rope elements, an indoor climbing wall, and field activities) to intellectual (small group discussions, action planning, and journaling). After trial and error, reflection, and sharing of insights, the participants try new skills in real life situations. Finally, participants are given opportunities to transferall that they have learned and integrate their collaborative leadership skills into their everyday lives at home, school, and in the community.

The conference is also structured around promoting the main objective of Rotary—service, in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world—as well as the Four-Way Test. Throughout the conference, participants are challenged to think about, embrace, and model the concept of Service Above Self (the Rotary motto) and conduct themselves according to the high ethical standards of the Four-Way Test.