The World Council of Churches this Wednesday
celebrates the contributions of young people to the ecumenical movement.
By Lydia O’Kane
The youth of the world are in the
spotlight this 12 August as the United Nations observes International World
Youth Day. In order to raise awareness about issues young people are facing
today, the World Council of Churches is marking its own Ecumenical
International Youth Day this Wednesday.
The initiative was launched in Geneva in 2019 in order to
highlight "the contributions of young people to the ecumenical
movement.”
2020 focus on Mental Health
This year Ecumenical IYD will focus on
the issue of mental health. This theme is the result of input from young people
within and outside WCC networks who wanted to explore this pressing topic.
The WCC programmes on Youth
Engagement in the ecumenical movement and Health and Healing
are collaborating on this year’s theme.
Joy Bohol is Programme Executive
responsible for Youth Engagement at the World Council of Churches. She told
Vatican News that young people are really looking forward to the 12 August
event.
“We have so much excitement that we
received from many people all over the world.”
Due to the effects of the COVID-19
pandemic, this year’s celebration will be a virtual one, bringing together a
variety of events, with the help of technology, from different parts of the
world.
According to Ms. Bohal, this virtual gathering is really
aimed at “highlighting different contributions from all over the world.” “You
will see,” she says, “that young people will be leading different parts of the
virtual event.”
As part of this global youth celebration, there will be
readings from different regions around the world, including the Pacific region,
Africa, Europe, North and Latin America. There have also been songs composed and written especially
for this International Youth Day.
Youth on the front line
Speaking about the importance of young
people to Christian churches today, Ms. Bohal notes that Jesus and His
disciples were young people too. She also points out that the youth of the
world are the ones that are on the “front line to use our gifts and through our
faith to respond to the different issues in our world today, so the church is
being called to be intentional in providing the spaces of shared leadership
with young people towards bringing the Kingdom of God on earth.”
Vatican news
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