Australian Catholic Youth Festival 2019

The College is excited to extend an invitation to ACYF2019 to students in Years 10-12. We are encouraging students in Years 10-12 to apply to be part of this amazing opportunity. The the Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF) will be held at Perth in December. We believe this event would be a wonderful end of year experience for our students.

ACYF is the largest gathering of young people in Australia with 20,000 young people in Sydney 2017. As a reference point the event is best paralleled with World Youth Day. The primary differences being that ACYF is open to Australian Youth, is held in Australia and occurs every two years.

The aim of the festival is to enable young people to enter into a contemporary experience of our Church and assist each participant to develop their identity as a Catholic or member of our Catholic community. The festival is open to Catholic and non-Catholic students who attend a Catholic school.

The theme of this year’s festival is “Listen to what the Spirit is saying”. Based upon this theme the participants will experience concerts, masses, social justice initiatives, meditation opportunities, be able to access spiritual direction, engage with people from across Australia and discern their identity. The festival will be held at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre which affords the participants the opportunity to determine which events and experiences they would like to be part of.

The festival itself runs from Saturday the 7th to Tuesday the 10th of December 2019. Applicants for SICG will be asked to nominate the travel package they would prefer as a member of our group. Although travel and accommodation is being facilitated by the Archdiocese Office for Youth staff from Saint Ignatius will accompany participants throughout the duration.

The College is committed to the formation of our students in our Ignatian commitment to Cura personalis (Care for the whole person) and strongly recommend that parents and students consider this opportunity and encourage you to discuss the opportunity as a family.

The College will release applications on Friday the 31st of May. It is important at this time to note that the cost for the festival includes a 50% discount (paid by the Archdiocese of Melbourne) and is inclusive covering flights, accommodation, meals, entry to the festival, transport etc. Further details will can be found in the application package which will be released on Friday.

Further details about the festival can be found at the ACYF website at https://www.cam.org.au/Portals/82/Resources/ACYF19_A4_4ppSchoolBrochure_web.pdf

and a video of the highlights of ACYF2017 can be viewed so that you might visualise the experience at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txVXLgxaHT0

I hope that this announcement excites our Year 10-12 students and their families and look forward to receiving applications in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

Brendan Nicholls Australian Catholic Youth Festival Coordinator