The Rotary Clubs of Dapto, West Wollongong and Wollongong sponsored eight young people to a recent Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment program – RYPEN – held at Telford in the Royal National Park.
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Megan Bojar and Nathan Aylett, from Dapto High School; Cassidy Cochrane and Bonnie-Rose Condon, from Kanahooka High School; Faith Irving, Emily Curtis and Lyndon Kerr, from Keira High School, and Aemelia Ramos from Wollongong Performing Arts High School attended, each sharing that the program was awesome.
The program commenced with all participants settling into their cabins, enjoying dinner and participating in two icebreaker activities to get to know each other.
Saturday involved a whole day full of fun activities.
The first two guest speakers spoke about their profession and what inspired them to succeed.
The first, a physiotherapist with NSW health, went into depth about how to manage stress and use resilience.
The next speaker, a young woman who is a qualified heavy vehicle plant mechanic, was the first female to compete and win in the National WorldSkills Competition.
She then went on to represent Australia in Abu Dhabi last year.
She spoke about her challenges being a woman in a male dominated trade, workplace, and how she used resilience to overcome stereotypical and insulting comments.
Other presenters included a young lady, a social worker, who works for Barnardos, a children's charity.
She spoke about the importance of having supportive people in your life, also to be a supportive person to others as well.
She also covered goal setting by running several games to strengthen team-building skills, utilising individual qualities to complete several races, gradually reducing the time frame for each.
The day finished with dinner and a campfire.
Sunday’s activities included completing, as a group, a set of three paintings, to present in the afternoon.
It had to depict what the participants thought was the most important aspect of the camp, what they learnt and to paint it with justification.
Each participant was presented with a RYPEN T-shirt to wear for group and individual photos, before making a presentation to show his/her name, the meaning behind it, to present a group “chant” and their paintings.
Throughout the course, a sentence about what was pulled out of each activity and experience was recorded by each participant.
For further information about Rotary Youth Programs, contact Dot Hennessy, phone 0412 120 314.
