Rotary Youth Leadership Awards

RYLA programs build the next generation of leaders

Taking the stage in ripped jeans, a hoodie, and a baseball cap at an annual Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) camp in Wisconsin for high school students, Marvin Edelstein transforms himself into Marvelous Marv, the rapper. No matter that he's in his 70s. "It astonishes them at my age," he says.

Edelstein, a member of the Rotary Club of Evanston Lighthouse, Illinois, didn't know anything about rapping or hip-hop until he became an adult facilitator at District 6440's RYLA camp. But he taught himself, because he knew the importance of relating to the students. He's modeling one of the basic tenets of the RYLA experience: allowing students to learn things for themselves. "My biggest challenge," he says, "is to not tell them how to solve the problems but let them figure them out on their own, like I did."

At its core, RYLA is intended to develop self-confidence and life-management skills in young people ages 14-30. How that comes about is entirely up to the clubs, districts, or multidistricts that offer the program. RYLA organizers often target certain age groups or address specific needs and interests within the community. However they accomplish it, RYLA programs aim to develop leadership skills, instill a lifelong commitment to service, and empower young people to make the most of their lives.

Most RYLA programs worldwide feature inspiring speakers, exercises aimed at discovering individual leadership styles, and practice with effective communication, team building, and problem solving. Other program ingredients can include ethical leadership, social justice and advocacy, assessment of community needs, and the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Organizers strive to make the experience as interactive as possible by allowing RYLA participants to put their new leadership skills into practice, including writing an original skit or song to present on the last night.

Typically, programs are set up to be an all-expenses-paid "award" for the selected students, with Rotary clubs and other partners footing the bill. An estimated 50,000 young people participate in RYLA worldwide each year, in events ranging from three to 10 days. Some RYLA programs have multiple days of leadership training spread out over several months, while others, like the one in Wisconsin, are several consecutive days of intense activity that can stretch from an early-morning wake-up call until well into the evening. Many participants return year after year as junior counselors or in other roles, helping younger kids navigate the program. Adults, too, tend to make it a habit. Speakers come back at reduced fees, and facilitators like Edelstein wouldn't miss it. "If every Rotarian came to see what we were doing," says District 6440 RYLA chair Sean Nelson, "we'd never have any trouble raising funds to select even more great kids to do this."

RYLA got its start in 1959 in Queensland, Australia, to celebrate the royal visit of 22-year-old Princess Alexandra of the United Kingdom. The event attracted about 300 young Australians. An organizing committee later made the program an annual endeavor to train young people in character, leadership, personal development, and good citizenship. RYLA, which became an official Rotary program in 1971, continues to be a huge program in that country.

The Australia connection made a big difference in the success of a RYLA program in Tanzania, which recently received top honors in Rotary's Leaders in RYLA Awards as the International Awardee. The award recognized the Tanzanian RYLA for engaging Rotaractors to put on a RYLA boot camp for Interactors. The idea was brought to the country by Seb Cox, a Rotaractor in Australia who moved to Tanzania in 2016 after he was recruited to start Rotaract and Interact clubs at a school there. "I worked 15 weeks, 12 hours a day with no days off on Rotary activities, including organizing Tanzania's first RYLA program for youth under 18," says Cox.

By 2019, the Rotaract-led RYLA in Tanzania had developed into a series of six events in three regions in which 266 secondary-school students learned leadership skills, including how to start and run a soap-making business. Event participant Loveness Kamugisha, now 22, has already applied her skills while helping her parents with their business in the public market in her hometown, and she dreams of starting her own venture after graduating from medical school. The program, she says, taught her "to find the fun and something to love in every challenge that comes along in life. If I hadn't attended RYLA, maybe I would have dropped out [of medical school]. But RYLA was my teacher." RYLA, in other words, completely changed Kamugisha's path in life.

RYLA tends to do that. About a decade ago, Karen Loeb, whose younger sister lost parts of both legs in an auto accident, wondered why a program as impactful as RYLA didn't have a program for people with physical disabilities. As a member of the Rotary Club of Denver Southeast, Colorado, she had attended RYLA as a volunteer and could tell that the physical demands of the program would leave disabled students on the sidelines. So she became the driving force behind a project in which her club, which has more than 100 members, renovated an Easterseals camp to the tune of $100,000 and organized a RYLA event aimed at exposing students of any level of physical ability to the full challenge and fun of the program, which includes a climbing wall and zip line. Loeb called the result RYLA Plus, which eventually became a part of Rocky Mountain RYLA (Districts 5440 and 5450). Trained medical and counseling staff from the Easterseals camp have made sure the participants' physical and emotional needs are met, too.

"I was skeptical going in," remembers Jeffrey Marshall, now 24 and a trained geologist. Marshall has a rare physical disorder that requires him to use a motorized scooter, and he once played in national tournaments with a youth sled hockey team. "RYLA gave me the experience of success at an entry level in leadership and showed me I didn't have to be shy." The team-building exercises especially, he says, "brought me a feeling of accomplishment, even if they didn't always work," like creating a structure with marshmallows and straws that could protect an egg in a high fall. It kept Marshall coming back year after year as a counselor, drawn by what some participants call "RYLA magic."

The innovative RYLA Plus program garnered a Leaders in RYLA Award last year. "We want these kids to get the same leadership tools that others get," Loeb says. "And my dream is to replicate this program throughout the U.S. and worldwide." She points out that many states have an Easterseals camp that could be adapted for RYLA.

As for Marvelous Marv, he has taken his enthusiasm for RYLA back to his club and local schools. Now, the Evanston Lighthouse club sends 30 students a year to RYLA, up from just two when he started. And the students are doing what is expected of them: changing the world. Right after one RYLA, Edelstein is happy to report, a group of participants quickly raised $17,000 for a water well in Haiti. That’s a great return on any club’s investment.

This story originally appeared in the June 2022 issue of Rotary magazine.