Mags Gargan
Mags Gargan meets the new National Director of Youth 2000
Last October, Youth 2000 elected Belfast-woman, Lana Wilson as its new National Director.
Youth 2000 is a Catholic youth organisation that organises lively faith festivals, retreats, prayer groups and other events for young people aged 16-35 across the island of Ireland. It began as one young English man’s response to Pope John Paul II’s call at World Youth Day in 1989 for young people to evangelise young people and it has spread to more than 25 countries all over the world, coming to Ireland in 1993.
Lana works full time as an architect in Belfast and was the Ulster regional director of the group for five years before her national election last year. She first came in contact with Youth 2000 12 years ago as a student in Queens University when she was searching to find other young people who shared her faith and heard about a local prayer group through the chaplaincy.
Friendship
“I came from a family where faith was important. I suppose for me I was searching for a friendship that would nurture that faith. I came from a background where a lot of friends didn’t go to Mass, didn’t pray and I suppose I was questioning at that stage whether the Faith was still relevant and did young people still value these morals at my age? It was really an eye opener to go along and discover there were so many people who were engaged in the Faith and wanted to be involved and to nurture it,” she says.
Before she attended her first prayer meeting Lana says she was uncertain of what she would find, but ended up making friends for life.
“Before I went because I was quite sceptical and I didn’t know what to expect. You know the way people have different views on religion and young people, I didn’t know if these people were going to be fun and the kind of people you can call friends,” she says. “When I went along I realised it was a very lively bunch of very normal people, and people that I really clicked with. I realised that I did have a lot in common with them. They were very down to earth people who were into the Faith.”
Lana attended the prayer group weekly and started going to the Youth 2000 retreats, and after a couple of years she was asked to take over the organisation of the prayer group.
“There was a team of people who took the group each week and I was co-ordinating that, ensuring that we had the Blessed Sacrament, that we had music and then we would also organise some sort of social afterwards with tea and coffee,” she explains.
She went on to become regional director for Ulster and was part of the Youth 2000 national council which is a made up of a team of 18 people who meet four times a year to plan, co-ordinate, and share ideas of different events going on in the country.
Since the national council elected her as their national director Lana says she has been kept busy planning events. “It is a very busy role, but an exciting one and a bit daunting too,” she says. “Basically I am directing all of Ireland, managing the prayer group, liaising with all the national council members, directing the regional leaders, organising the two national retreats in the summer and at Christmas, and really just ensuring that Youth 2000 is being led through its charism,” she says.
The Youth 2000 charism is ‘youth leading youth to the heart of the Church’ and Lana says the vision of the group has been “always based on the Eucharist, the Rosary and Scripture”.
“We are very focussed on youth leading youth to the heart of the Church. We are not for profit so everything we do is based on kind donations from people. It’s completely volunteer-based as well so we really are depending on the generosity of volunteers,” she says.
Aspect
“I think the beauty of Youth 2000 is it offers a balance aspect to life. You are not only learning about faith, but about how to bring faith into each aspect of your life. It really has something to offer everyone, whether you are into sport, drama or music and it’s a great means of travelling because we have events all over the country. You could be in Cork one week and Donegal the next,” Lana says. “It’s a really fantastic opportunity to share your faith with other young people and to meet other young people. I find that myself – I have met so many fantastic people in the last 12 years. It is a great means of nurturing your faith as well, regardless of how many retreats you have been to you always learned something new.”
Youth 2000 continues to grow in strength in Ireland. It just had its most successful Christmas retreat to date, with 650 teens descending on Newbridge College in Co. Kildare on the weekend before Christmas.
The annual Summer Festival in the Cistercian College in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary last August attracted over 1,000 young people over the weekend.
The group has started to plan for World Youth Day in Poland this July and will be taking 80 young people over. But the next big event in Ireland will be the Valentine’s Ball on February 6 in The Glenroyal Hotel in Maynooth, Co. Kildare.
“It is a wonderful event,” Lana says. “We would get almost 300 young people and usually start with Mass, then a three-course meal, dancing, raffle etc. It is really good fun. It is also a chance to dress up!”
*Tickets for the Valentine’s Ball can be purchased from the Youth 2000 office on (00353) 1 6753690 or email dublin@youth2000.ie. This is strictly an over 18 event.