On one of Sydney’s coldest weekends 150 young adults gathered together to attend the 10th annual Sikh Youth Australia National Leadership Development Weekend.
Over the last 10 years, this leadership program has proven to be a unique and successful platform for young Sikhs in Australia aged 18+ to develop personal and professional leadership skills, meet high profile Sikhs from around the world and network amongst themselves.
What has the program achieved in that time?
Well, innovative and successful youth-driven initiatives such as Young Sikh Professionals Network (Australia), Sikh to Give and Culturecare were launched from Ideas to Impact course and past graduates from the SYA Leadership Program have gone on to establish Sikh Societies in Maq Uni, UNSW, and USyd. Not to mention the countless friendships forged, mentors found and personal goals established and achieved over the years.
This year, eager participants were organised into the threecourse groups, each lead by facilitators from all over the world, which resulted in an enriching, dynamic and electrifying experience for all who attended.
Level 1: PX2 Master Yourself
This is an internationally accredited course designed by The Pacific Institute (US) aimed at self mastery, goal setting and realising your greatest potential by understanding your mind and the reasons behind the way you think and act.
Level 2: SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE Influence Others
This course helped participants work more effectively and influence others through personal insights of your own behavioural strengths and challenges.
Level 3: IDEAS TO IMPACT For the Entrepreneur
This course delivers the high level skills, tools and experience you need to turn an idea or vision into reality. It is designed to challenge your personal, interpersonal and entrepreneurial skills.
This year we had a world class team of facilitators from Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and Australia including for the first time Jagmohan Singh (Regional HR Director for Medicines Sans Frontiers). We were given the keynote address by Danny Gilbert AM (Managing Partner of top tier law firm and Board member for NAB), and had the pleasure of listening to Michelle Rowland MP (Federal MP for Greenway) who is sponsoring Sarbrinder Dhaliwal as a participant to this year’s National Student Leadership Forum in Canberra. The NSW Premier’s representative Kevin Connolly MP also joined us on the last day for the Ideas to Impact presentations.
For more details on the courses and facilitators at this year’s SYA Leadership Program is available here
Here is what a few of our participants have had to say!
“This weekend has been phenomenal and I am lost for words. Potentially could be the highlight of my holiday” – Vikram Singh (PX2 Graduate 2014)
“At an individual level the program allowed me to assess how and where was limiting myself and recognize the things that were holding me back academically, socially and personally.”– Minu Gill (PX2 Graduate 2014)
This year the graduates from the Ideas to Impact program incorporated all the skills accumulated from level one and two into the development of a physical project. As a result the following projects were born, with the invaluable donations and assistance from crowdfunding received from sangat who came from all over Sydney to see the highly anticipated 2014 I2I presentations on the Sunday.
- Langar4Good is developing the world’s first Gurdwara iLangar system to help 3 major gurdwaras in Sydney minimize excess food waste by channelling langar to homeless food distribution services.
Watch Langar4Good's below
- SYA Mobile Team aims is to develop a mobile app that will help Sikh Youth Australia (SYA) easily engage with the Sikh Community using location based networking. SYA Mobile aims to bring it all SYA initiatives to create a hub to enable volunteers to donate and register for any initiative you are interested in.
Watch the SYA Mobile Team's video below
- Speak Out is a youth orientated mental health community project that is aiming to enable youth to express how they feel emotionally through the use of a safe and anonymous mobile application platform. Those who download and access the mobile app are able to record how they are feeling emotionally and what they think is causing them to feel this way. Users are also able to access recordings that have been transformed into text by content monitors.
Watch Speak Out's video below
“I went with high expectations, but was still impressed with everything. The quality of the course I attended, and the facilitators were world class.“ – Jivtesh Singh (Ideas to Impact Graduate 2014)
SYA would like to sincerely thank all the sewadars, facilitators, participants and supporters who made this year and the previous 10 years possible. With Waheguru’s Grace we hope this sewa continues to empower and uplift future generations of proud Sikh youth in Australia.
