AUSTRALIAN
YCS WELCOMES YOU TO AUSTRALIA
FOR WORLD YOUTH DAY 2008, SYDNEY
Australian Young Christian Students Movement
25 Union St Granville NSW 2142 Tel: (02)9637 7853 Fax: (02)9897 5382 office@aycs.org.au
IYCS at World Youth Day 2008
(Some IYCS-IMCS members during WYD 2005, Germany)
· IYCS-IMCS-IYCW Member’s Gathering
Event Title: The Power to Act
Date: 17 July, Thursday
Time: 7pm-9pm
Venue: St. Joseph’s Church, 2 Missenden Road, Camperdown
Co-organizers: YCS/YCW Australia and IMCS
· Youth Festival
Event Title: Act Today, Change Tomorrow: A New Generation of Apostles Speaks Out!
Date: 16 July, Wednesday
Time: 2pm-4pm
Venue: Big Top Luna Park
Co-organizers: YCS/YCW Australia and Youth ICO
· Youth Festival
Event Title: Witness through Action: Young People and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s)
Date: 15 July, Tuesday
Time: 2pm-4pm
Venue: Barnet Long room, Customs House, Circular Quay
Co-organizer: YCS/YCW Australia, IMCS, MIJARC and Caritas Australia
· Vocation Expo Stall: open all through-out WYD days
Name of the Booth: Network of International Catholic Youth Organization
Venue: Darling Harbour
For further information, you may contact alcala@iycs-jeci.org or chantelle.ogilvie@ycw.org.au
What is World Youth Day?
Every 2 – 3 years the Catholic Church holds a week-long international gathering to celebrate young people and their faith. This gathering is called World Youth Day (WYD) and it brings together hundreds of thousands of young people from around the globe. The next international WYD will take place in Sydney in July 2008. Up to 500 000 young people are expected to take part.
WYD is a chance for young people across the world to connect with each other and with God. It gives them a space to share their faith in a variety of ways and to come to know how huge and diverse their Church is.
World Youth Day in July 2008 will include:
Days in the Dioceses (July 10 – 14). All across Australia, Catholic parishes and groups will welcome young people from around the world for 4 days of cultural exchange and hospitality.
World Youth Day Week (July 15 – 20). Youth will gather in Sydney to take part in a huge festival that will include forums, concerts, workshops and talks by Bishops (‘Catechesis’). The climax of the week will be a pilgrim walk, prayer and mass with the Pope on Sunday July 20.
For more information about WYD08 go to www.wyd2008.org
WYD08 is a major moment in YCS’s ongoing mission to animate young people to live out their faith in action for change. Through WYD08 we will:
Witness to the lives of young people and the Gospel call to action
Engage young people in YCS
Form young people before and beyond WYD08 to create real personal and social change
Build solidarity with students and workers around the globe
Australian YCS is running a joint program with Australian Young Christian Workers and working with International YCS and other organizations to host events in July 2008.
Some of the events YCS is working on include:
Forums on justice, the environment and interfaith dialogue in Perth, Melbourne and Parramatta during Days in the Dioceses.
Act Today, Change Tomorrow, a forum on the lives and concerns of young people around the world during World Youth Day week.
An international gathering of YCS members.
A workshop on the Millennium Development Goals.
WYD08 offers a space for students from different cultural and social realities to come together, learn about each others’ lives and faith, and experience solidarity in a powerful way. YCS encourages its members throughout the world to get involved and come to Sydney.
YCS members may come to WYD08 as part of local pilgrimage groups from their area. For information about this contact your Bishops’ Conference. When you travel with youth from your local church you have a chance to make an impact on each other.
Members may also choose to come as individual pilgrims or create their own pilgrim group. If you are taking this option there is a possibility and would like to be accommodated with other members of IYCS then you can join the IYCS pilgrim group. If you would like to join this group then please contact the International Secretariat mail@iycs-jeci.org Please note that the International Secretariat can not financially contribute to the participation of any pilgrims.
What matters to you? What are students facing in your part of the world?
As part of their preparation for the youth forum ‘Act Today, Change Tomorrow’, Australian YCS is surveying 50 000 young people from around the world about their lives and what they care about. If you are aged between 15 and 30, YCS and YCW want to hear from you.
This information will be collected and form the basis of ‘Act Today, Change Tomorrow’, which will give young people a chance to see the reality of their lives in a global context, judge it in light of their faith and find out how they can take action.
YCS and YCW World Youth Day Coordinator
PO Box 170 Croydon NSW 2132
- Real Life Survey [PDF] (English)
- Real Life Survey (French)
- Real Life Survey (Spanish)
- Real Life Survey (Italian)
You can also scan and email them to chantelle.ogilvie@ycw.org.au
Sydney’s World Youth Day organisers are looking for teams of young people to lead masses and animate Catechesis at WYD08.
As part of WYD Week in Sydney Bishops from all over the world will speak with pilgrims about Christian faith before celebrating mass. Animation teams prepare pilgrims by sharing stories, drama, music or prayer, and who assist during mass.
YCS members who are coming to WYD08 might consider putting together an animating team. It’s another way of making a difference to other youth and how they experience WYD08. A team includes 7 – 15 people who all speak the same language and who can get together to prepare before coming to Australia in July 2008.
For more information about animating catechesis go to http://www.wyd2008.org/index.php/en/events/animation_of_catechesis
or contact Chantelle at chantelle.ogilvie@ycw.org.au