Connect.org.nz to host WYD Kiwi Pilgrim Journal

18 June 2008

Connect.org.nz to host Kiwi Pilgrim Journal for WYD

The recently re-launched online hub for young New Zealand Catholics, Connect.org.nz, will be home to the Kiwi Pilgrim Journal (KPJ) during the week of World Youth Day in Sydney (14 – 20 July). The KPJ will be a real-time online journal of the Kiwi pilgrimage to WYD 2008.

Pilgrims will have the opportunity to write journal entries when logged on from anywhere in Sydney, including from the New Zealand Headquarters in central Sydney. Meanwhile, family, friends and supporters back home will be able to visit Connect to read their pilgrims’ entries, see live updates of the Kiwi Ambassadors, daily updates of photos, videos and a national blog on the WYD experience. There is even a space for family and friends to leave messages of support. Pilgrims and supporters simply need to register on Connect.org.nz in order to leave a message.

“The Kiwi Pilgrim Journal carries two key purposes,” says Lucy Ellis, Communications Officer for the National WYD Committee. Firstly, the Kiwi Pilgrim Journal makes the Sydney WYD experience accessible to those who cannot be there in person. “So many people have given so much in time, prayers and financially, to get the pilgrims to Sydney – this is one of the ways pilgrims can give something back,” says Ellis.

Secondly, the Kiwi Pilgrim Journal will provide a nationwide archive of the experiences of New Zealand’s pilgrims to this World Youth Day. “The opportunity to have one central collection of memories from this national pilgrimage is unprecedented, and it will be a source of great inspiration for the WYD legacy in years to come,” says David Mullin, the Project Manager for the National WYD Committee. Some 4000 Kiwi pilgrims are expected to attend the event in Sydney.

World Youth Day, the largest youth event in the world, is a global event called by the Catholic Church and held every two or three years. That held in 1995 in Manila gathered 4milliion people; 2million gathered in Rome in 2000. In 2005 1.2 million people gathered in Cologne, Germany and heard Pope Benedict announce Sydney as the 2008 hosts. For WYD08, Sydney expects 125,000 International Visitors and 100,000 Australians to participate in the week-long activities.

ENDS