RYLA was born in Queensland in 1959 from a seminar run by the Queensland State Government for young people called 'Gundoo'. This celebration of youth was part of a festival to mark Princess Alexandra visiting Australia. The State government invited two young people from every council in Queensland to attend the week seminar at no cost to them. The State Government funded Gundoo but approached the Rotary Club of Brisbane to accommodate guests, plan the program and run the week. By all reports the week was a great success with close to 300 young people coming together in what was the first RYLA experience.

Over the course of the following decade the Rotary Club of Brisbane took on Gundoo as a regular project for their club with anything from 20 to 100 participants each year. Soon after RYLA spread throughout Australia and across the Tasman to New Zealand, it was finally adopted by Rotary International as an International Rotary Project in 1972. Once adopted, Gundoo was given its official Rotary name - The Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. Previously each district and sometimes each club had named the event as they saw fit.

Today there are approximately 300 known RYLA programs throughout the world in Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cote D'Ivoire, Chile, Egypt, England, France, Finland, Jordan, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Nigeria, The Phillipines, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, The Netherlands, Turkey and the United States of America.

RYLA's are run within Rotary district, across districts, in single countries or across several and internationally. All programs are unique to each event but they all celebrate the power of young people and the potential they have to make a difference to their community.