Rotary Youth Leadership Awards ( RYLA) is a leadership development program run by Rotary. It fosters continued and stronger leadership of Youth by providing them with a valuable training experience. This edition included presentations, activities, and workshops that covered a variety of topics.
The theme of RYLA 2021 was Digital Connect and was held on Saturday 29 May and Sunday 30 May, all via Zoom.
We started on Saturday with a lot of speakers who inspired the RYLA participants with their great topics. On Sunday the RYLA participants were put into various break-out rooms, where under supervision of a Rotary member they participated in writing a Manifest for the Future. A manifest is a concise, usually point by point, representation of assumptions.
The choice of manifest was made to remind the RYLA participants what is important and what they believe in. It should help them to plan their course and sharpen their personal goals. It is also to motivate and inspire when shaping their own future. In the second half of the Sunday they had their presentations.
During the RYLA a small competition was promoted. The participants were asked to be creative and design their own Zoom background for the RYLA. Many did as asked and at the end of the two days two winners were announced.
In short, RYLA Suriname 2021 was great. We would like to thank all the participants, helpers and speakers for making this a successful event!
