RYLA-2010

It was with a mixed feeling of Joy & Pride that the students of Aishwarya college boarded the College Bus at Udaipur to attend the International RYLA 2010 to be held at Kota from 15 to 17 Oct. 2010. 19 academically best performing & most active students of the Institution were selected to attend the event along with the 2 faculty members. All the students were participating in the RYLA for the first time in their life, unaware of what was in store for them in the event.

1st day, October 15 2010.

After the formal opening of the I-RYLA 2010 and introduction to the pilot faculty and organizers of RYLA, the participants took part in the Jingle and Mingle Activity by Rtn. Pragya Mehta to unfreeze the participants into various groups. Here the students were divided into 10 groups: A Piece of Peace, Diamonds, Grey Matter, Panglosians, Rainbows, RYLA, Rockers, Waves, White Tigers, Vivacious Spirits, Zombies. The aim of the activity was to make the students interact with rank strangers, become aware of the talents & skills of others. They had to gain knowledge about the other members of the group so as to be able to cooperate & complete the assigned tasks. The activity succeeded in instilling a sense of camaraderie amongst the participants & surely extended their Learning Curve.  

After this, students participated in a session by Rtn. Dr. Vikrant Mathur on The Leadership Challenge. He said that various types of leadership are: Delegative, Democratic & Autocratic & that a perfect recipe to be a good leader was to tailor-make these 3 ingredients as per the demand of the situation. The students learnt that a leader is the one who influences others & leads them together as a team. Leader should be honest, impartial & most importantly a great motivator. The Leader should be gifted with an ability to persuade others to seek the defined objectives enthusiastically. The Leader should be endowed with the quality of leading the people where they dont want to go rather than where they want to go.

This was followed by a session Knowing YOU - Liking YOU by Rtn. Mita Agarwal on how to know and like yourself to the fullest. She explained that being involved in the worldly activities we seldom get time to devote our time & energy on ourselves resulting in us distancing from ourselves. To lead a successful & happy life it was of utmost importance that we not only knew ourselves but also liked ourselves.The lecture was followed by an activity to make a "Me Chart" where the participants were asked to draw their own identity with the following aids: Name, City, Strengths, Weaknesses & Vision. Participating in the activity the students became aware of the importance of knowing & liking themselves. 

This was followed by an activity by Mr. Bala on Teamwork. Students were asked to form a line from their belongings to show their teamwork skills. After this a session by Mr. Bala was held on teamwork guiding the importance of each and every participant in a team.

This was followed by session on Communicating to Win by Rtn Mita Agarwal highlighting the factors of effective communication namely Body Language( 55%), Tone(38%) & Words (7%). She said that communication is the exchange of the information to the other person, involving negotiating skills. She advised the participants to avoid using complex words & wasting time while communicating. She emphasized that the communication should be two-sided & one should avoid words which have dual meaning. 

This was followed by an activity on Vision & Mission named You - The Visionary by Mr. Bala to explain to the youth as to how things get complex in life if the vision is not clear. He also explained the difference between Vision & Mission. Vision is the destination where one wishes to reach after certain period of time & Mission is the path that leads one to that destination. The lecture was followed by an interesting activity wherein each member of all the ten groups was asked to draw the one organ of an undisclosed creature on the same piece of drawing sheet followed by the other members subsequently. The last member of each was called upon to connect the various parts on the groups drawing sheet. After all the participants had finished their drawing it was disclosed to them that the creature being drawn was an elephant. Comparing the team drawing with the actual elephant drove home the point regarding Vision & Mission to all the young participants. 

The evening was celebrated with Talent Night where the youth displayed their multi-dimensional talents like singing, dancing etc. The youth participated in the activity with gusto & energy to make it a memorable evening for the participants as well as the on-lookers.

2nd day October 16 2010.

The day started with workout for the participants with Aerobics classes. All the youth present had taken part in some form of exercise in their life, but doing the workout in the form of aerobics was a totally new experience for them. They thoroughly enjoyed the workout on the melodious music & it was an enriching experience for most of them. The students learnt how to be energized through out the day by doing simple exercises.

This was followed by You - The speaker, session by Rtn. Pragya Mehta on Speaking effectively & ways of making presentation to others. She said that the speaker should learn to cope with stage fright & should display confidence by speaking without hesitating. The Speaker should prepare the topic thoroughly & should know the target audience. It was important for the speaker to remain within the topic & not stray away from it for retaining the interest of the audience in the speech.

Success Corner was addressed by PDG Dr. Ashok Gupta, Vice Chancellor IIS University on his Success Story. He said that his father was his role model in life who inspired him to become an achiever in life. He said that one does not need strong role models in life & can take inspiration from friends & family. He told the students to not mess up with multitasking unless and until they knew what they were doing and getting done. He inspired the students to work hard to achieve success in life.

Session by DGN Er. Ratnesh Kashyap on Ethics in Leadership was held next. He said that good leaders have many ethics like patience, knowledge, motivation & self-confidence. He explained to the students present regarding how they can handle difficult situations ethically. He emphasized how we can be ethical team leaders & interact with other team members. He showed all the qualities of an ethical leader by an example of Captain Sullenberger who landed a plane in the Hudson River saving the lives of all the passengers and the crew.

Next, Session on You - The Planner by G. Bala showing the importance of having SMARTER goals was held. Mr. Bala hyphenated the word as: S-Specific, M-Measurable, A-Achievable, R-Relevant, T-Time Bound, E-Exciting, R-Revisable. He explained that Planning was the process of determining an organizations objectives & selecting courses of action to achieve them. He said that smarter goal was the one which was specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, exciting & most importantly flexible. He said that to achieve the desired goals one had to make a plan. Without planning a person could never achieve the desired goals in life. The talk was followed by an activity wherein the participants were asked to make a paper aero-plane and told to make it glide in a straight direction. The activity was planned to make them aware of the importance of proper planning. The activity was fun for the participants & they thoroughly enjoyed launching their paper rockets into the orbit of the Hall.

Out-of-Box-Thinking activity by Rtn. Pragya Mehta was designed making the youth aware of the significance of thinking away from the league. She emphasized the importance of thinking differently, especially how to think in different ways. She explained to the youth how to use creativity to find better ways to accomplish day to day activities. According to her, it was important that, while thinking, one did not worry about the views of the others & rather concentrated on own ability. For making a new discovery one had to look at the established older views skeptically & start looking at things from a different perspective. One had to inculcate oneself, with practice, to think in random directions to achieve results via serendipity. This was followed by an activity wherein the participants were asked to find out alternative uses of things like fountain pen, comb etc to drive home the importance & relevance of the Out-of-Box-Thinking.

3rd day October 16 2010

Assignment of the previous day, Creative marketing of products to unlikely customers, was presented by the participants. Students were asked to come with innovative marketing ideas like selling a credit card to beggars. The exercise was aimed at making the students aware about how the products should be sold. The activity helped put the marketing abilities like making catchy advertisement to support the product in perspective for the students. Participating in the activity the students learnt how to work in a team & market a product. They also learnt the skills of designing Brochures & Posters from the old & recycled magazines.

Success Corner Session was addressed by Mr. V. K. Bansal (Director, Bansal Classes), who despite his physical incapabilities (muscular dystrophy) achieved success. He motivated the youth with few very inspiring examples. Emphasizing "The Power of Positive Thinking", he said that all the students could be successful provided they thought positively to achieve the desired goal. He advised the students to not become demoralized by failures in life & in fact learn from the wrong decisions of the past. He called upon the youth to have faith in the almighty and asked them to take every adversity as a blessing of the God. He also explained how to control the devil within oneself. He advised the students to sit in meditation for at least 5 minutes every day to find the goal in life. He also pointed out to the students present that every achievement gives us temporary happiness & hence we should do the work which gives us permanent happiness like making our parents happy. 

Session by Rtn. Pragya Mehta on You - The Relationship Manager was aimed at inculcating the qualities needed to build & maintain relationships with our colleagues. She said that the qualities required to maintain a healthy relationship were: Love, Trust, Care, Honesty, Acceptance, Empathy, Assertion, Appreciation, Open Communication. For maintaining good relationships it was important to not be jealous of our colleagues. She said that "If you respect others then the others will respect you." After all, it is up to us how we build & maintain the relationships.

RYLA 2010 was brought to a close with the Prize distribution & Farewell ceremony. The winners in the various activities were given prizes for their performances as a token of appreciation. All the participants were given a group photograph of the RYLA-2010 for fond remembrance of the event. All the students left the venue with a heavy heart, ever wondering how the 3 days passed away in such a flight, wishing that the event could have lasted a bit longer