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YATRA 2017. Photo: Carrie Grace Littauer/WCC

YATRA 2017. Photo: Carrie Grace Littauer/WCC

Applications are now open for YATRA (Youth in Asia Training for Religious Amity) 2018, an inter-religious training programme of the World Council of Churches (WCC). The intensive training course, held annually since 2014, seeks to enable young Christian leaders from Asian churches to contribute towards the building up of just, harmonious and peaceable communities by equipping them for ministries of justice and peace from an inter-religious perspective.

YATRA – (which is a common term for pilgrimage in many Indo-Asian religions and languages) is intended to reflect the idea of pilgrimage in resonance with the WCC’s call to its member churches to embark on a pilgrimage of justice and peace.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the formation of the WCC. Alongside its ecumenical quest for the visible unity of the churches, the WCC has embraced inter-religious dialogue and cooperation as an authentic form of Christian presence and participation in an increasingly pluralistic world since 1967. The WCC understands the concern to reconcile one’s faith as a Christian to the wider call to dialogue as an important challenge for Christian witness. YATRA, with the 2018 theme “Passionately Christian and Compassionately Inter-religious” will offer an opportunity to reexamine this concern in a creative and critical manner.

This year, the residential period will take place from 7-20 July in Hong Kong at Tao Fong Shan Christian Centre, a co-host of YATRA 2018.

The residential phase is preceded by a 4-week-online learning from 6 June – 4 July 2018. Experience has shown that the combination of online and experience-based learning enables participants to be academically sound and practically grounded, and thus fosters a holistic learning environment.

The deadline for applications is 18 March 2018.

More information and application guidelines