RYLA has been our Priority Model for the Wahroonga Rotary Youth Committee.
We selected RYLA as our main District project and we have sent 46 young people to RYLA in the past 15 years. We believe it achieves more ’bang for our bucks’ than any other Rotary Youth project. In one year (2020), we aimed to send most of the management team from our local Rotaract Club to RYLA and we sent 8 people plus selecting a further 3 who were given to other Rotary Clubs as their nominees.
Program | Background | Objective | Result | Wahroonga’s Activity |
RYLA Rotary Youth Leadership Awards | Youth leaders are usually self made with no opportunity to develop professional leadership skills | Creating leaders from successful existing youth leaders. This live in 7 day course has been estimated to be worth over $7,000 in commercial terms | Over 50 years of continuous programs for 80 – 100 young people annually from each District across Australia & now world wide | Wahroonga has sent 46 young people to RYLA over the past 15 years including 8 in 2020 |
Wahroonga Rotary interviews all RYLA candidates and produce a short summary to advertise these attendees to our Members.
Name | Suburb | Age | RYLA 2024 Participants - Background and Interests |
Alexi Barriere | St Ives | 22 | Employed with SOS Removals, 3rd Year Psych / Science UNSW, will do Clinical Psych for Masters Hobby is Digital Design, Powerlifting, Motor Cycle riding and Car Maintenance. Also did International Baccalaureate Camp |
Edward Hayek | Ebenezer | 19 | Chiropractic Assistant and Admin Assistant, First Aid qualified, has a Youth Community Service Award, and Natalie Burton Memorial Award for Children’s Tumour Foundation. Plays Chess, Piano and E-games |
Mia Ferguson | St Ives | 19 | Doing Bach Medical Science aiming for Clinical Research? Bronze Duke of Ed, Hobbies incl Crochet, knitting, Origami Snr Captain High School, Sports Captain and Mentor Leader |
Dean Nguyan | Revesby | 19 | Dentistry Student at James Cook Uni at Cairns, Sydney Boys High Prefect, Youth Community Service Chair SBH, OAM Youth, SRC, Ted X, Sir Roden Cutler Foundation Scholarship, Merit and Harvard Book Awardee |
Simon Buchner | West Pymble | 25 | Rover Scout at Turramurra (7yrs), heavily influenced by his parents who are very active Scouters, Community Theatre Cert 1V and Diploma in Musical Theatre Delivery Driver for Toyota Parts |
Xavier Knight | Pymble | 21 | Xavier had to withdraw as he was unwell at the start – he will be attending RYLA in 2025 Double Degree Bach Mechanical Engineering and Commerce (Finance). First Aid qualified and RSA, working part time at Knox, Cadet Warrant Officer at Knox, House Captain and Prefect |
RYLA 2020 Left to right: Will Giacometti, Charlotte, Kym, Leonie, Kitty, Phoebe, Danuka, Kiarash, Bill, Tianna and Adam in front.
The Youth Committee unexpectedly found they could fund a number of RLYA Candidates for 2020 and they were delighted to support a number of our new Hornsby & K’gai ROTARACT (HKR) members to go to RYLA for a weeks Leadership and Personal training between 5 and 11 January 2020 at Elanora on the Northern Beaches.
Wahroonga selected/funded 8 young people. These included the Rotaract Secretary Charlotte Weatherall, the Treasurer Bill Chen and Phoebe Biddle. We also have Adam West from Bush School Learn to Swim and Will Giacometti. Helen has nominated two ex Knox boys Danuka Tennakoon and Kiarash Kyanian. A late entry for funding was Leonie Nahhas who was nominated at the end of RYLA 2020 as the Most Outstanding Participant.