A GROUP of young people from Droitwich will be heading down under next year to join hundreds of thousands of other youngsters for World Youth day.

The nine youngsters from the Sacred Heart parish will travel to Sydney, Australia for the event, which is organised by the Catholic church for 18-30 year olds from across the world.

The highlight of the trip, between July 15 and July 20, will be a papal mass bringing together more than one million people.

The group hopes the two weeks of activities will give them inspiration for ideas they can bring back to their own parish.

Matt Tomlinson, aged 19, of Willow Drive, said: "We hope to be able to give something back."

According to Matt, members who attended previous World Youth Days in Toronto, Canada and Cologne, Germany had returned and created a youth club which now meets every week.

He said: "We never had anything back here in our parish until then so we hope to do the same again."

He added he wanted the trip to show young people were not "wasters" as many people appeared to think.

Cath Lumber, of Colford Close, who set up the youth club and will lead the group next year, added: "I'm hoping to makes sure the rest of the group have a really good experience.

"It's a great trip to meet people with similar beliefs and refresh your faith.

"To be at a papal mass with a million people will be awesome."

The group is hoping to raise money towards their trip as well as to help fund visitors from poorer countries through a series of fundraising events.

Anyone interested in helping them should email sacredheartyouth@hotmail.co.uk