YWAM (pronounced: why-wham) is a diverse, global, Christian, volunteer movement from many nations, backgrounds, ages and cultures; sharing their faith through meeting practical, spiritual and physical needs, offering training in more than 800 courses and seminars for service in all spheres of society. YWAM currently operates in over 1,000 locations and 180 countries, with over 18,000 staff.

When YWAM began in 1960, our main focus was giving young people opportunities to demonstrate the love of Jesus to the whole world, according to His command in Mark 16:15. Today we still focus on youth, but we have members (known as “YWAMers”) of almost every age and many of our short-term efforts have grown into long-term endeavours that have impacted lives and nations.

YWAM has a decentralized structure that encourages new vision and the exploration of new ways to change lives through training, convey the message of the gospel and care for those in need.

We are a mixture of people from all over the world, from 180 countries in fact.  In many of our locations, people from a wide variety of nations serve side by side.  We come from numerous different Christian denominations and speak hundreds of languages. Nearly half of our staff come from “non-western” countries, such as Brazil, Korea, Indonesia, India and Nepal.

In addition to our full-time staff, many YWAM locations host short-term outreach teams made up of individuals, youth groups, families and churches who get to participate first-hand in “making God known” through both words and actions.  We send out over 25,000 short-term missionaries each year.

Find out more on www.ywam.org

History of YWAM International – click here

YWAM’s Foundational Values – click here