Lisbon, Sintra and Loures are ready to receive 78,000 pilgrims in schools

The municipalities of Lisbon, Sintra and Loures can host around 78,000 school pilgrims during World Youth Day, most of them in the capital, which has yet to announce how many schools will be open.

Less than a month before the start of the event, which will take place August 1-6 in Lisbon, the three main municipalities of Greater Lisbon have already identified collective spaces where pilgrims can stay overnight, including several schools.

Most of them will be placed in metropolitan schools. The Lisbon City Council has told Lusa that it expects to house 42,000 pilgrims in these facilities and should soon announce which institutions will open their doors for this purpose after completing an inventory process this week.

In Sintra, 53 educational institutions will be opened during the week of the event, which will be able to accommodate about 25,000 pilgrims, without any conditions for educational activities, since “schools with a family support component and leisure activities were not considered,” the municipality said. . in response to Luz.

Loures Mayor Ricardo Leão said he estimated that the municipality’s schools would receive about 11,000 pilgrims, without specifying how many institutions would open their doors to support the event.

At the end of last week, 313,000 pilgrims had already completed registration for World Youth Day (WYD) and the majority (about 200,000) chose the accommodation option. In the three host dioceses (Lisbon, Santarém and Setúbal), the organization has already identified more than 470,000 places for overnight stays, as well as 7,138 families to accommodate young people.

Preparing educational institutions will not be a difficult operation, as young people will need to bring a sleeping bag and an isolation mattress with them, whether they live in host families or in collective spaces.

However, in Sintra, safety and health checks and analyzes of the places that will receive pilgrims are already underway, and the WYD organization is responsible for the rest of the preparations, as in Lures.

Since the national exams are still taking place on the eve of the Journey (Stage 2 ends only on July 26), two municipalities guarantee no interference by providing the necessary facilities and facilities for the normal passing of the tests.

Meanwhile, schools where pilgrims can stay have not yet been determined in the capital. In response to Luce, the Lisbon City Council only reports that “the inventory process of schools and other municipal equipment that will be provided to pilgrims for the night is in the process of being finalized.”

The Amadora City Council will provide 14 schools, but does not yet know how many pilgrims it will receive from July 30, and is still awaiting information from the organizing committee of the parish.

Meanwhile, non-teaching workers went on strike from 00:00 to 24:00 between July 31 and August 4 after some municipalities allegedly called on school staff to work overtime at schools that will host youth.

However, the municipalities of Sintra and Loures do not expect any restrictions due to the strike. Sintra, for example, has decided not to involve non-teaching staff, and schools will be supervised by municipal employees during the day and WYD volunteers at night.

“There will be a daily visit by the local authorities to all schools after the departure of the pilgrims to assess any non-compliance with the rules for the use of space, to intervene on the same day, before the pilgrims return at the end of the day. late,” the municipality of Sintra explained to Luce.

The Mayor of Loures is also confident and ensures that “everything was worded right” to ensure that the space between the approximately 500 ward volunteers and municipal employees is monitored.

Lisbon was chosen by Pope Francis for the next WYD, the main ceremonies of which took place in the Eduardo VII Park and Tagus Park, north of the Parque des Nations, on the banks of the Tagus, within the municipalities of Lisbon and Loures.