What is Taizé?

Taizé is a hard place to describe. A simple summary is that it's an international ecumenical youth-focused meditative monastic community in France.
Quite a mouthful, no?
At Taizé's heart is a community of 100+ brothers (monks, kind of) of all nationalities living in community together in a small rural village in the Saône-et-Loire region of France. It was founded by Brother Roger during the Second World War, and since then has grown from a tiny group of youths in the middle of nowhere who'd vowed to live together for their whole lives, to an internationally renowned hub of spirituality and joy for countless visitors of all backgrounds.
Since the '70s, large numbers of young people have been flocking to the hill community, the majority staying for a week in tents or dormitories provided by the brothers, each participating in the three communal prayers a day, meeting each other in small discussion groups and volunteering with the everyday tasks - cleaning, cooking and so on - as needed. During the winter these visitors can actually be outnumbered by the brothers, but at the height of summer there can be as many as 6000 young people at any given time.

What's the point?

It's no accident that so many young people love and visit Taizé, as it provides and represents many things which are simply forgotten or deemed impossible in today's fast-paced world. The simplicity of life and the all-pervasive joy so noticeable in every aspect of life at the Community can readily touch any uncertain visitor. Something firm and positive about the lifestyle and environment can destroy the barriers between different groups or individuals, and it's astoundingly easy to make good friends in just a week there. Couple this with a unique style of prayer based on singing simple phrases in a multitude of languages in harmony with those around you, and it becomes easy to take a step back, appreciate and examine many aspects of life which are normally taken entirely for granted.

European Meetings

While Taizé's roots are in its community on the hill in France, it also leads meetings in various countries round the world, often with a focus on harmony and reconciliation. The largest of these meetings takes place at the end of each year, each time in a different major European city.
Almost all the brothers and volunteers go along to facilitate the arrival for a few days of tens of thousands of young people, each staying in local accommodation such as host families. Everyone comes together to pray in vast halls, to attend workshops and simply to meet and experience a different style of trust.

My involvement

In order for so many visitors to be adequately welcomed and organised, the brothers need the help of longer-term "permanent" volunteers, youths on a personal journey who come to live with the Community for anything from a few weeks up to a year or two. I was already in the habit of regularly visiting Taizé since I first went there in 2008, and when I finished my undergraduate degree I took the opportunity to spend four-and-a-half months there during winter time of 2012-13. During that time I participated in the many and varied tasks round the hill and worked at their European Meeting in Rome. Since then I have attended quite a few meetings here and there, including European Meetings in Prague, Valencia, Riga and others; "reflection weeks" in August of several years from 2015; regional meetings in Ukraine, Austria and Lebanon; and also returned to France in 2018 to spend a(nother) month as a permanent.