• As the countdown continues to World Youth Day (WYD) in Krakow, young Catholics from across England and Wales are getting ready to pack their bags for Poland.
    Many will be going as pilgrims to the event which will be presided over by Pope Francis, but there are also young people who, while there, will be using their skills and talents to communicate the faith.
    Ahead of WYD the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, organised a Social Media Masterclass on Mercy.
    The one day course gave young pilgrims, otherwise known as World Youth Day Communications Officers, the chance to receive tuition from leading social media and news practitioners.
    The masterclass was designed to equip young pilgrims to ‘share mercy’ across the social media platforms and to create content which will have impact both online and offline. 
    Daisy Powles is a professional photographer and participated in the course and will be heading to Krakow.
    Speaking to Lydia O’Kane, she said she was looking forward to using her skills to be able to communicate what’s going on over there to people back home.
    “I will be very hands on with communicating the faith back home, but then there are also others who are going to be writing, using other social media platforms such as facebook and twitter and snapchat…to perhaps younger people who may not be picking up the newspaper, may not be reading news in a more traditional way, but hopefully we can reach them through those different social media platforms.”
    Daisy also spoke of her excitement at being able to use her talents as a photographer to record different aspects of the World Youth Day experience.
    “I think through photography as the quote goes you can tell a thousand words through a photograph and I think with photography it’s so instant hopefully I can take a photograph and within a few minutes it can be up on social media…”
    World Youth Day runs from the 26th to the 31st of July 2016.
    Source: Vatican Radio