Young New Zealand Catholic pilgrims heading to World Youth Day in Sydney this July have done their bit to offset the emissions from their air travel, by participating in the World Youth Day Carbon Footprint Programme.   With 4000 New Zealanders participating in this event, the National WYD Committee and Williment Travel Group - the official Travel Services provider - wanted to ensure that environmental concerns were addressed through education and offset opportunities.

Over $17,000 will be donated by Williment Travel Group on behalf of the WYD pilgrims to a poverty reduction and community forestry development programme in the southwest of Nepal.  The recipient project for the WYD footprint offset is a programme of Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand’s partner Caritas Nepal.  Caritas is the Catholic agency for Justice Peace and Development. The Nepalese programme empowers women and children, providing micro-credit support for income generation activities, health awareness to prevent simple diseases, and extracurricular activities to promote child rights, peace building and environmental awareness.  Agriculture training will be provided, and help given for nurseries to grow saplings to reforest 90 hectares of barren land.

The offset funding was collected as part of the pilgrim package. Ross Jamieson from Williment Travel Group had this to say:  “Williment Travel Group are delighted to be working with the National World Youth Day Committee of New Zealand.  This project is the first in which Williment Travel Group have been able to incorporate a carbon footprint offset within a group programme, with the end result a very significant contribution to a community reforestation programme in Nepal.”

“The WYD Footprint Programme is an important way for pilgrims to ‘see, judge and act’ – in down-to-earth ways – out of love for the earth and its people, and with the eyes, heart, mind and spirit of their faith,” states Mary Betz of Caritas, the developer of the WYD Carbon Footprint resources.

The World Youth Day Carbon Footprint Programme has also included Q&A-style resources on the New Zealand WYD website, wyd.org.nz, as well as encouraging pilgrims to participate in competitions focused around service and environmental justice.