Kona Ly and Giovanni Loyola from the West Ottawa Interact Club attended the District Life Leadership Conference earlier this year. They were two of the 113 students at the conference, and the Holland area sent 9 high school students to the conference in total.

 

The students were assigned to "families" for the conference. Each family had an adult counselor and students from different areas. One of the activities was for each family to create a skit that illustrated a leadership trait discussed at the conference. There were also team-building exercises.

 

Some of their favorite activities were Rotary Moments where people would present on Rotary involvement that affected their life. There were also problem-solving events such as having 25 people stand on a sheet and figuring out how to turn it over while everyone was standing on the sheet.

 

There was also a multi-hour simulation of country leadership that allowed the students to role-play officials in different governments in an attempt to present peaceful solutions to problems. Kona admitted that his country ended up going to war because they could not resolve their conflicts.

 

They had a great time and recommended the conference to other students. It definitely changed their outlook on how to approach life.