At Rotary Sunrise Focuses on Youth Development

Purpose

Rotary believes in developing the next generation of leaders. Our programs help younger leaders build leadership skills, expand education and learn the value of service.

Rotary Youth Leadership Academy (RYLA)

Development of the youth, is one of Sunrise’s focus areas – to this end, we use the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy (RYLA) and send a minimum of two high school learners – a boy and a girl – annually on a leadership weekend. The weekend which is sponsored by each club is led by trained facilitators.

The learners are chosen by the school and on this leadership training, they meet peers from other schools and different backgrounds. They are shown how to develop as part of a team and to challenge themselves.  Judging from the feedback after each session, the learners are inspired to do their best and seek opportunities beyond their immediate horizons.

Providing Food for the Brain and Mind

Add Hope feeding scheme

One of our club’s major projects is the Add Hope feeding scheme that we administer and which feeds about 70 children from low-income homes east of Pretoria.

Sweet Angels and Kungwini Early Childhood Development

Sweet Angels is a creche that has 20 pupils and Kungwini Early Childhood Development Centre has 50.  The children receive at least two nutritious meals daily and during the December holidays food parcels are distributed. Brightly coloured classrooms and qualified teachers help the pre-schoolers to prepare for school and the meals ensure proper physical development. Often one or both parents are unemployed – and especially during Covid (when food parcels were distributed) the threat of starvation was very real.