As an exchange student I had the chance to take part in the
Rotary Youth Leadership Awards 2010, in Port Dickson, from the 4th to
the 7th of March.

On the 4th early morning, Luca from Germany and I arrived at
the train station at KL Sentral, to meet with the Rotarians that were
organizing transportation to the venue in Port Dickson. We took the
KTM straight to Seremban and then jumped onto the bus dedicated to
the transport of the RYLA participants going to Port Dickson. Along the
journey we got started with the fellowship process, and created some
bonds very quickly with other participants, especially Ibrahim from
Pakistan and Azubuike from Nigeria.

When we arrived at the Eagle Ranch Resort, we all queued up for
registration, got our t-shirts and got acquainted with our respective
groups with whom we were going to spend the whole RYLA adventure.
We were allowed to take our lunch and settle down in our dormitories
before coming back for our first session, an educational talk by Dr.
Suresh Govin. The talk was definitely interesting, and in my opinion
was giving a different point of view on the way we should make the
choices we, youths, have to make every day. After the session we
gathered on the field for the telematches, which were very
fun team games. The icebreaking session earlier went well and so the
team spirit in the team was therefore very good.
In the evening, we all gathered again for our second session, a talk by a
banker from HSBC about financial management. In my humble opinion,
this talk was not very instructive, and I found the speaker very businessminded
and his promotional presentation a bit inappropriate. We ended
the day with a debriefing and went to bed. Very tiring first day!
The second day began extremely early, with the Rise and Shine, a bit
of exercise to start the day properly. After that we had breakfast and
headed to the beach for rafting. Gathered in our teams we had to build
a raft of our own and paddle to the flags floating away from the beach
and come back. Great team spirit and a lot of fun! It was an interesting
experience in the way we had to make emergency decisions, manage
to lead the team efficiently without disagreeing with each other.
After that we all had a long break for lunch and the Friday prayer,
which most of used to take a rest. The long days and the shorts nights
left us tired! The break was followed by a Rope course that, although
very fun, in my opinion, did not bring us much in terms of leadership
or even fellowship. After dinner we all went back to the hall for a talk
by Sivapragasam Arumugam, a professional Law of Attraction trainer,
who, on top of being an ex-Rylarian of the year, turned out to be a very
good speaker, and managed to introduce us to the law of attraction.

We ended up with another debriefing and went to bed.
On Saturday morning we all gathered for the Rise and Shine once
again, but this time it was very soft, and those who were late
weren’t punished (probably because our beloved commandant was
not around!). The programme went on with a talk by Dato’ Arthur
Edmonds about juvenile delinquency. Fairly informative! That talk was
followed by a treasure hunt and an unforeseen talk about Rotaract
by Rotaracter Kulvinder Kaur and finally, we reached the session that
I, as an ex-Interact conference participant, was longing for: the talk
by Gerard Lazarus. Even though his talk involved a couple of points
already exposed in the talk given at the interact conference, it was,
as expected, very funny, lively, informative and inspiring!

The afternoon went on peacefully with the free time that we were
given to prepare the following day’s team performances. The evening
–the last that we spent in the camp- went on with a barbecue dinner
and a show time. Our future Rylarian of the year, Mansoor from Pakistan
entertained us with his guitar, his voice and his impressive knowledge
of Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi songs. After supper and debriefing, we all
went to bed, more tired than ever.

Thanks to our most merciful commandant, we were exempted from
Rise and Shine and enjoyed our extra-sleep very much. We were given
a short time to revise our performance of the day, and gathered in
the hall for the evaluation, the debriefing, the closing ceremony, the
show-time and the presentation of awards and certificates. Mansoor
was elected rylarian of the year and we all got our certificate. After
thanking the organizers, we all took the bus back to Seremban, and
returned home.

In conclusion, I would say that RYLA was a tremendously enriching
and fun experience. Very interesting and inspiring talks, a great
fellowship, and a great deal of new friends!

Thibaut Dalle
France