- Title: Impressions (or Critique?) on the 1995 World Youth Day (WYD): The Manila Experience.    16 kb by    Regino, Marilyn | regi3m@hotmail.com    Short Outline The1995 World Youth Day illustrates how planners may provide solutions for colossal events taking place over a short period of time operating under limited resources, which is a common phenomenon among developing countries like the Philippines. It proved to be successful notwithstanding non-extravagant display of new infrastructure and facilities. Abstract The World Youth Day, one of the biggest international religious festivals, particularly conceptualized by the Roman Catholic Church and officially approved by the Pope, has been taking place every two years, since 1985. This celebration is a worldwide youth movement primarily aimed at inciting, especially the young Catholics in taking up a more proactive role as Christians in every society and thereby to renew, revive and/or rediscover a more vigorous Christian life in general, and faith, in particular. This urgent calling for re-evangelization, meaning: to preach the gospel, as well as to encourage new converts to Christianity belongs to the so-called ‘priority list’ of the Church. And for this ideology to materialize, several activities and concepts have been thought of and implemented in line with this 1-week international celebration, among which includes the following: prayer festivals, Holy Hours, pilgrimages or church visitations, prayer meetings, Holy Masses, praise, singing, dancing, stage plays and concerts, exhibits, bible readings and studies, catechism and workshops, tours, socialization, and most of all, highlighted by the vigil celebration and the final eucharistic mass con-celebrated by none other than the Holy Father himself with other bishops and priests from all over the world. It all began in Rome (1985), then in Buenos Aires in 1987 with estimated 1 Million participants, then in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (around 600,000 people), followed by Tschenstochau, Poland (1991), with more than 1.5 million visitors. The 5th World Youth Day in 1993 took place in Denver, USA with around 700,000 participants. A decade after the 1st WYD Celebration, came the most attended, largest ever, event, which took place in Manila, Philippines, estimated to have over 4 million participants, composed of the youth, adults and children, Christians and non-Christians, alike. The Philippine folk, known for its hospitality, congeniality, joviality and most especially for its inspiring religiosity, as well as for having a rich and fascinating culture with a manifold of faces to offer (folklore, good food, beaches, nature, languages, reasonable prices on goods and services, etc..), likewise, an intriguing combination of foreign influence and modern society, like; fashion, malls, fast food, traffic and smog…, made the country an obvious choice for the year 1995. Moreover, the Philippines is the only Christian country in Asia. According to the 1990 national Census, 88.88 percent are Christians, among which are 82,92% Roman Catholics. In connection with the 38th International Planning Congress’ theme, an attempt to illustrate how planners and organizers, alike, may provide solutions for big events taking place over a short period of time, like the above-mentioned event, operating under limited resources, that a developing country like the Philippines is usually faced with, without drawing adverse effects on the environment, likewise taking into consideration the concept of sustainability, in the process, will be done. This paper will be presented mainly in narrative form with some sub-topics supported by some statistics, secondary data and information and literature and by personal impressions and critique by the author herself. Keywords international religious/cultural event, sustainable,economical Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2002: The Pulsar Effect   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper