Six Canadian youth of different faiths have helped the Tony Blair Faith Foundation to reach its $5-million , 500,000 malaria nets goal.

These six Faiths Act Fellows based in Toronto and Montreal were part of Canada’s inaugural Faiths Act Fellowship launched by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core. The interfaith initiative paired 30 young Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs and Humanists and was designed to show that when people of different religions work together to achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, they can have a crucial role in reducing conflict and saving lives. The students spent the past 10 months building multi-faith relationships by encouraging different faith communities to work together to raise funds and awareness to tackle malaria and other global issues.

TORONTO - Peter Grbac  of Toronto has won the fifth annual Friars' Student Writing Award contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which runs Jan. 21-28 this year.

TORONTO - It is halfway through second period and I’m lying on my classroom floor, away from all of the windows and doors, alongside other classmates. The room is silent. Luckily, this is just a practice lockdown drill that schools must go through in case of an emergency.

TORONTO - The organizers for World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia, have discovered that the Toronto experience holds some valuable lessons. As the officials from Down Under who were in town just before Easter learned, the two cities have a lot in common.

Imagine getting the chance to study astronomy at the Vatican Observatory. It may seem hard to do, but it isn’t so hard for Nathan Deg, whose dreams have recently become a reality.

MONTREAL, Que. - Laura Hughes walked into a Taizé prayer session by accident and has been hooked ever since.

TORONTO - Three years ago Larissa Olinda moved to Toronto to open the first Canadian chapter of the Shalom Catholic Community. Within the year two other missionaries, Reimar Barata and Emanuela Gomes, followed.

OTTAWA - While a relic is often labelled as a thing of the past, as Carlos Martins explains, these sacred objects have relevance today. The fourth-year Companions of the Cross seminarian uses his extensive relic collection to teach about them. A former atheist, Martins came to the Catholic Church almost 11 years ago during a mystical dialogue with God before the Blessed Sacrament. Two years later, his relic ministry began.

TORONTO - With a thick Philadelphia accent, Rocco Palmo talks a mile-a-minute rattling off quick facts about Vatican hierarchy or a quip about the latest hot-button Catholic issue. This is a guy who spends his day keeping up with the goings-on of the Catholic Church.

WINNIPEG, Man.  - At an early age Ian Garcia started doing drugs, drinking, partying and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Eventually his family disowned him.