Two local Catholic high schools have dug deep to help their local environment as part of the Young Christian Students (YCS), an international program led by the Young Christian Workers (YCW) movement.
YCW and YCS strive to serve, educate and represent young people by empowering them to be the change they want to be in their lives, communities and the world.
Last year, St Columba’s Catholic College, Springwood and St Luke’s Catholic College, Marsden Park were involved with the program, working on social justice themed initiatives.
St Columba’s focused on the topics of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘a waste-free Christmas’.
Meanwhile, St Luke’s looked into ‘environmental actions’ to create a better school environment. St Luke’s has also established a school podcast group and identified YCS leaders to help support and lead out this venture.
Parramatta YCS continues to promote and recruit new schools into its programs.
Students participating in the YCS program. Image: supplied.
Last year, YCS gave a presentation with a group of Western Sydney teachers, known collectively as the Faith in Action – CSPD Schools Teachers Connect network. Following this, two schools expressed their interest in adopting the YCS program this year.
In November last year, Parramatta YCS hosted a retreat day for its student leaders and teacher assistants at St Luke’s for both school cohorts. This gave students a day of friendship, new connections and leadership opportunities, as well as a voice in the delivery of the YCS program, following the mantra “do before, do with and do after”.
The retreat also demonstrated the worker and organisational mission of striving to serve, educate, and represent young people by empowering them to be the change they want to see in their lives, communities, and the world. Outcomes from the retreat included a new YCS coordination team and the development of an annual YCS calendar.
Thank you to all the students and educators who attended and supported this initiative. We look forward to reaching new heights with the program this year as we continue on our new 2025 mission for YCS: Visibility, Unification, Expansion and Development.
Read some of the student feedback from the retreat:
“The half-day leadership retreat was an amazing way to build the strength of the YCS in NSW as a whole by focusing on building relationships between schools. This retreat led to the beginning of a long-standing relationship between St Luke’s and St Columba’s, allowing for the possibility of coordination in the future. The day also helped connect young leaders of the movement to National figures of the movement allowing them to see the scale of the YCS’s and YCW’s work. We also worked on leadership formation giving student leaders the training they need to lead the movement at their school. Overall, the Half-day retreat was a fun and productive day full of bonding and training allowing students to flourish as leaders and has paved the way for the movement to expand and become much larger.” – YCS President Sudeep Velagapudi, St. Luke’s Catholic College, Marsden Park.
Students participating in the YCS program. Image: supplied.
“Being able to take part in this YCS retreat day has been an amazing learning experience. Competing in team building challenges enabled us to build our leadership and teamwork skills. We participated in thoughtful discussions about what we do in our respective YCS teams and what we can do to improve our groups. We found it a great opportunity to create new friends/acquaintances and learn more about the other people in YCS.
This retreat day has been an incredible experience. Getting to know the YCS team at St Lukes by collaborating, and building friendships and connections, through fun activities and intriguing discussions, helped us to learn about what they do in YCS, and how we can improve from each other, to make YCS better for everyone. Throughout the retreat, we did varying activities, from building balloon towers to developing teamwork to learning about key figures who drove for justice in history, so we can be more like them. There was so much everyone learned at the retreat day, making it an amazing learning experience we are all sure to remember and would definitely all participate in again.” – Amelie Carroll and Eleanor Stewart, YCS Students, St. Columba’s Catholic College, Springwood.
YCS is a student-led social justice group that aims to create change in schools and the community through creating action together.
Actions are created using Joseph Cardijn’s ‘See, Judge and Act’ method during weekly action and leadership discussions. Through social justice actions, students learn a variety of skills which helps them to change the world around them, use agency and learn more about themselves.
Visit the Young Christian Workers website to learn more about the YCS program.
