Rota holding workshop for youth club members

Reach Out To Asia (Rota) is currently holding a four-day workshop for Rota Youth Service Club members to further develop their skills as youth leaders and global citizens. The programme is sponsored by Vodafone Qatar, which partially funds the club’s activity through the QR9mn corporate donation given to Rota late last year, and runs until October 29. “Our aim is to create young, global leaders,” explained Mohamed Abdulla Saleh, community development manager, Rota.  “To best achieve this, we have created the training session to be held in a so-called ‘cocoon’ - a closed and safe working environment, away from the distraction of everyday life.  It is the ideal environment to train the participants in three themes we believe were crucial to develop their skills:  leadership, service learning, and global citizenship.  It is our hope that with the tools we provide, participants will be able to self-develop as youth leaders on all fronts.” The training is a highly interactive programme aimed at high-school and university students between the ages of 14-22.  The four-day programme includes workshops, seminars, and skills-training sessions that focus on leadership skills, teamwork, project management, and advocacy skills. This RYSC Leadership Training comes on the heels of an introductory workshop held for new Rota Youth Service Clubs recruits in January 2011. “The training is part of our on-going Vodafone/ Rota sponsored programmes to provide tools to build up leadership skills for Rota Youth Service Clubs members,” said Luisa Gentile, head of Corporate Social Responsibility at co-hosts Vodafone Qatar. “There are three primary objectives for the workshops:  create awareness and understanding of participants of the Rota Youth Service Clubs aims and to connect them to each Clubs’ core values, strengthen the capacity of the Clubs’ executive boards to manage their Rota/Vodafone projects more effectively, and to create a platform for Club members to network and share experiences in a creativity-promoting social/community responsibility.” Although the training is focused on all Rota Youth Service Club’s executive board members, it is mostly targeted at 60 youth who are very active within their respective Clubs.  Almost all of these targeted members have applied for funds from the Rota/Vodafone Change Grant to carry out their annual service learning projects in the coming ten months. “In addition, 10 Rota Youth Services Clubs are also targeted,” added Mohamed Abdullah Saleh. “The participants will be encouraged to run service-learning projects using the event themes, and will be equipped with case studies, tools, and techniques to help them carry the projects out.”