Religious Youth Service
UPF chapters organize Religious Youth Service projects that offer service-learning opportunities with a special focus on developing personal leadership and peacemaking skills. Through living together and providing altruistic service in a community, participants demonstrate that it is possible for our global human family to come together in peace for our mutual well being.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: RYS-China
Lan jia chun, China – Chinese and foreign RYS participants helped the workmen building a kindergarten in the small village.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: RYS-Palau
Airai, Palau – RYS participants restored Bai ra Mlengl, the village's traditional meeting place.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: RYS-Guatemala
Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala – RYS volunteers from Cuba, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, United Kingdom, and the United States helped build additions on to a Mayan school.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: RYS-Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia— The service project consisted of some heavy brick and cement work, painting and clearing the grounds of a dilapidated Primary School.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: Robert Kittel, Director of Peace Education, UPF-India
Religious Youth Service teamed up Indian athletes from the Interreligious Peace Sports Festival to clean and preserve a 100-year-old sacred painting in a 2,000-year-old Hindu temple in rural south India in April 2006.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: Religious Youth Service
RYS Annual Report 2006—2006 was a good year for Religious Youth Service. Thanks to the work of project developers and educators, we were able to carry out 13 international projects and give over 500 young people from 35 nations an opportunity to experience the stimulating interreligious and intercultural friendship building atmosphere of RYS.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: Religious Youth Service - India
Chennai, India—Forty young, enthusiastic volunteers representing five religions assembled in Chennai Sept. 23-30, 2005 to take part in values education and to build bathrooms at an orphanage
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: Chula Senaratne, RYS - Sri Lanka
Religious Youth Service organized a service project in southern Sri Lanka Sept. 16-24, 2005, to mark the UN International Day of Peace and to help those affected by the tsunami.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: Religious Youth Service - Guyana
Georgetown, Guyana - After the January 2005 flooding in which many people lost their homes, and in some cases, their lives, Religious Youth Service participants worked with Habitat for Humanity Aug. 11-23, 2005, on a housing project on the outskirts of Georgetown.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: RYS-Zambia
Ndola, Zambia— The main focus of this RYS project was to have the participants from the different nations and religions cooperate to further build the school, providing a reasonable learning environment for the orphans. Participants built strong relationships with the community by visiting the residents’ homes and organizing various games for and with the children.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: RYS-Mongolia
Mongolia— The participants and leaders of this project came from the diverse religious backgrounds of Islam, Buddhism and Christianity. The work consisted of constructing a wall at the local Buddhist temple, and remaking the interior of the local Islamic mosque. Both were completed with satisfactory success.
- Religious Youth Service
- Written by: RYS-Indonesia
Indonesia— The project involved leveling a local schoolyard, laying a bed of sand and cement, and positioning new paving bricks. Also six “restoration teams” (of eight people each) gave the classrooms a much-needed face-lift.