This is the fourth year I have been chairperson for the youth leadership awards for Cork Bishopstown Rotary. This article explores what I have learned, and why I believe that every parent of a teenager should investigate whether the Rotary club in their area participates in this event.
The Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA in the United States) are run slightly differently around the world. In the European Union the competition is open to any young person who has attained 15 years and will be less than 18 years at the end of February the following year. Rotary Youth Leadership Competitions have been a long-standing tradition for my club. Each young person who applies gets to participate in a one-on-one interview where they try to convince us that they are the leadership material that should win first at their school level, and then later at our club level. This is a great experience, and is often the first interview they have gone through. Therefore we try to make it teachable moment and give feedback where we can. Yet, we enjoy the youth leadership competition not only because they give approximately 50 young people in Bishopstown the opportunity to test their leadership and speaking skills, but because our members learn so much about the leaders of tomorrow. We end each year expressing that if the young people we support are indicative of youth in general then our world is in good hands!
I think that this is the most interesting part of the awards, to understand that young people are involved in such interesting projects and the ones who compete for this award are well aware of what is going on in the world that they will take a part in. Several stories come to mind. Most vividly perhaps is the young man who had won a science award for developing biodegradable nappies. His family had recently had another young child so it was much on his mind that nappies (or diapers as they're called in the United States) were huge source of non-biodegradable waste. After much trial and error, he found a moss that worked well as a liner and built the prototypes. I only hope to hear some day that his idea was picked up by a major manufacturer.
The young woman who won this year from our club, Róisín Nic Cárthaigh, is 16 years old. She became one of the youth leaders in the nonprofit SHARE. They support elderly people in the Cork area who have no family as well as work with people in poverty in India. For her work in Cork she adopted an older man named Charlie. Charlie had lost his family connections early in life when he emigrated from Ireland to find work and was now completely on his own. Róisín found a distant family relative and Charlie now has family to look forward to as well as Róisín's regular visits. When we asked her about the desperate living conditions in India, she commented that while that might be true, people were nevertheless extremely happy, and wondered at what cost comes our modern technological life?
The Cork Bishopstown Rotary club offers this opportunity to students who attend: Coláiste Choilm, Mount Mercy and Ballincollig Community School. The winner from each school goes on to the club finals, held one morning before a lunch meeting. The winner from our club final goes on to compete at the regional level, where, if they win, they attend a week-long event at the EU parliament in Brussels.
We have been happy to have our winners, who also won at the regional level, come back to us and tell us of their experience. It's great in many ways. First young people from both the North and South of Ireland meet and experience each other's parliaments. They spend a day or two in Dublin and again in Belfast and unerringly they tell us of the difference they find between two cultures, people being much more laid back in the south. From that experience they go on to Strasbourg where they participate in the Euroscola programme. This involves a mock parliamentary gathering where youth try to put forward their agenda and get it passed by the larger European gathering. They participate in chair debates, and enjoy lively interactions with each other, but each and every one we have heard from tells us that the greatest thing is the friends they find across the border and throughout Europe.
As youth leadership draws to a close for our club for this year I know that all of the people in my club look at their time spent on this project and feel as though it was worthwhile. Of course we hope that the young person who won from our club will be able to go on and experience Strasbourg, but whatever happens, we hope that our support of her carries her into the next time she is interviewed with a little more strength. I personally recommend that any young person who believes in themselves should try this competition, it brings only experience and goodness.
E. Alana James moved from the US to Kinsale five years ago "and for the rest of her life. Five years ago she moved from the United States to this small fishing village on the southern coast of County Cork. Bringing humor and practical tips together she tells her own story as she discusses practical tools for women who want to reinvent either their personal or business life. |
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