More than 10,000 volunteers have already begun registering for World Youth Day (WYD) Lisbon 2023. Among national and international volunteers and team leaders, the group of volunteers for the great encounter with the Pope has been growing and building thanks to the generosity of thousands of people.

WYD Lisbon 2023 needs you! Registration to become a volunteer is still open and you can submit your application here. If you have any questions while filling out the form, we provide a video tutorial with step-by-step instructions for your registration:

André Nunes, a 24-year-old from Brandoa, signed up as a core team leader after having participated in WYD Krakow 2016 as a pilgrim. Among the memories he brought back from this experience, he recalled the storm that raged after the final Mass and that, despite the "queues of thousands and thousands of people leaving the venue", there was "no confusion or scaremongering or rushing" of any kind. "We were all there, united, young people and adults, encouraging each other", he stressed.

It was there, he said, that he realized that "the work of the volunteer is essential, and without him, regardless of the specific mission in the many that volunteering at WYD encompasses, everything would be more complicated", and so "all the difference could be made". For the young team leader, volunteering is even "one of the cornerstones of the great construction that is this WYD".

There are five essential characteristics for a WYD Lisbon 2023 volunteer, so that pilgrims from all over the world can be received in the best possible way: joy, resilience, flexibility, punctuality and obedience.

For André Nunes, being a volunteer at WYD Lisbon 2023 "means giving part of myself to the biggest event that Portugal has ever hosted", hoping to "actively serve all those I come across".

In addition, volunteering can also be "a remarkable experience at the spiritual level", stressed the young team leader who, through this experience, highlights the desire to "be found by God, who is also present in the smallest things".

André Nunes also invited all youths to sign up as volunteers, since being a volunteer for WYD Lisbon 2023 "is not only for me or for myself, nor only for the Church and the Pope who will be here among us: it is so that those we will serve may also come closer to Jesus and have a true experience".

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