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.

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.
WCC 9th Assembly directed the central committee to create a representative body of young adults [that would] allow meaningful participation of young adults in the life and decision-making of the WCC, and would be able to hold the WCC accountable to its goals regarding young adults.
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.

 
Related publications

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.

 
Related activities
Interns
Interns work in a WCC programme for a one-year period.
Stewards / leadership training
WCC stewards participate in leadership training and serve at WCC governing body meetings
World Youth Programme
The WYP encourages youth in the churches to plan projects with an ecumenical perspective.
Echos youth commission
This body enables young people to develop their visions of the ecumenical movement.