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Youth in the ecumenical movement: challenges and hopes

This project provides possibilities for youth to contribute their ideas to, and participate in, all the work of the WCC. One way is as interns (who spend a year working in one or another programme in Geneva), or as stewards (coming mainly to help out and learn at WCC governing body meetings).

The WCC internship programme balances work and learning. First, young people are provided with experience of work in an ecumenical field and equipped with tools to take this back to the local level. The second emphasis is on ecumenical formation and community-building for the group of interns to learn how to work in a multicultural and multiconfessional environment.

The stewards' programme includes an ecumenical leadership training seminar, and brings together a regionally and confessionally diverse group of young people for ecumenical formation and leadership development. 

Through the creation of a new "youth body", this project also encourages young adults to become more active in the life of the churches and the ecumenical movement. The new body is made up of 25 young people from the WCC governing and consultative bodies as well as from the broader constituency; it forms a critical think tank, and strengthens the role of youth in the WCC's decision-making processes.

Through the ongoing World Youth Programme, this project also continues to connect with ecumenical youth working at the local and regional levels, helping to build a global network of ecumenical youth working in close dialogue and partnership with each other.

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Related documents

Message from the ECHOS youth commission

During its 24-29 January 2010 meeting in Addis Ababa, Echos reaffirmed its commitment to the development of the youth ecumenical movement within the WCC, within the churches and organizations outside of the WCC whose members serve in our commission, and within the broader ecumenical community.

Report of the first Echos meeting

In its May 2007 meeting, the newly established youth body of the WCC adopted the name "Echos -Commission on youth in the ecumenical movement" and identified four areas of focus for its work.

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In the spirit of the 9th Assembly as a “youth assembly”, the youth gathered here, through a Committee created with an attempt to be as representative as possible, present the following summary of youth consensus in regards to their contributions to the WCC and the global ecumenical movement.

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Ecumenism and Youth

David Devadas - The Ecumenical Global Gathering of Youth and Students in Brazil in 1993 was a microcosm of the rich diversity of today’s Christian youth movements – Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic. Through their encounters, discussions, worship and fellowship, along with the experience of pre-conference visits to communities around Brazil, the 500 participants expressed the frustrations and hopes of Christian young people and the challenges youth are posing to the churches today and tomorrow.