<p>The Vatican-sponsored <strong>World Youth Day</strong> will be held in Panama City Panama January 22-27 2019. DignityUSA and our partners in the Equally Blessed coalition have sponsored LGBTQI/Ally young people to ensure there is a visible and vocal presence of LGBTQI and supportive people at past World Youth Days and want to ensure that is the case next year as well. Through a grant from the Arcus Foundation to support Equally Blesseds (EB) activities we already have some funding to send a delegation and hope to raise more. The Equally Blessed partners are hoping to come to a decision about the number of pilgrims we believe we can support by the middle of September and we will begin to discuss numbers and candidates next week.</p> <p>Pilgrims are expected to be able to speak about the experience of being LGBTQI or Ally and Catholic to folks who have questions or negative beliefs to network with pilgrims from around the world to disseminate information about resources and supportive organizations worldwide (which will be provided) to be willing to do both traditional and social media about being a WYD Pilgrim and to help with fundraising for the pilgrimage by inviting members of your personal networks to contribute and by agreeing to allow EB to share some information about you and your hopes for the pilgrimage in our fundraising outreach . Equally Blessed leaders will work with you in the months between selection and heading to Panama to help with skills-building and community development.</p> <p>If you are interested in being part of a group of pilgrims to WYD2019 please give brief responses the following questions. Your responses should be sent to <a href=mailto:execdir@dignityusa.org>execdir@dignityusa.org</a> and <a href=mailto:coordinator@equallyblessed.org>coordinator@equallyblessed.org</a> . We need this information by the end of the day Monday September 10. Thank you!</p> <ul> <li>How you identify by gender/orientation/ethnicity/relational or marital status/faith</li> <li>Involvement with Call To Action DignityUSA and/or New Ways Ministry</li> <li>What interests you about being part of an Equally Blessed pilgrimage to World Youth Day in Panama?</li> <li>Previous experience with international travel individually and/or with a group</li> <li>Language(s) in which you have some level of proficiency</li> <li>Experience using social media to promote causes of interest</li> <li>Anything else we should know about your interest</li> </ul> <p>This will be really helpful in making decisions about whom we are able to sponsor for this pilgrimage. We strive to send as diverse a group as possible and also hope that the group feels cohesive and mutually supportive.</p> <p>Thanks so much for considering this opportunity to represent members of the LGBTQI/Ally Catholic community at World Youth Day.</p> <p>Marianne Duddy-Burke</p> <p>Executive Director</p>