At Tawa Rotary's meeting on 19th March, students who had been sponsored by the club, spoke of their experience - Olivia Goodridge, RYE; Preston Lyons, RYLA; William Huang, Science and Technology Forum in Auckland. Murray Lucas from Tawa College spoke of the achievement of students at the college and acknowledged Rotary involvement in many ways. The parent of an outbound RYE student gave an update of her daughter's experience in Canada.
RYE student Olivia Goodridge presented an update of her activities, focusing on her year thus far at Tawa College. Olivia was particularly enjoying the more relaxed environment and range of classes that she was able to take at Tawa, rather than her prior purely academic environment back in Canada.
Preston Lyons spoke about his experience at the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) course. Preston was inspired by the theme of "Be the Inspiration". He learnt about achieving micro-goals, making small steps to enable achievement bigger goals, and working as a team. Preston also spoke about his gratitude for being sponsored for the RYLA course and the empowering experience it provided.
William Huang spoke about his experience at the Science and Technology Forum in Auckland. William found that the forum enabled otherwise timid students to be transformed. The forum offered team building and a good balance of leisure and academic work. William found that it was an encouraging and supportive environment that opened his eyes to a much wider range of potential future career opportunities.
Murray Lucas speaking about Tawa College, said it was great to be able celebrate youth achievements and acknowledged Rotary involvement in many ways at Tawa College. Tawa college is a very diverse college with a high level of academic and sporting achievement. But there are also challenges with mental health and virtual relationships, fractured family structures and a huge gap between rich and poor. There are also a high percentage of special needs students. Karyn Meade concluded the evening with an update on how her daughter Jordon was doing as our outgoing RYE student now 2 months in PEI Canada.
The Tawa College Head Girl and Boy were also in attendance.