Gil Harper, for World Alliance of YMCAs

(03 August 2010, Hong Kong) It has become an almost global phenomenon that young people will queue for hours, waiting anxiously to buy the latest iPods, Blackberries and other ‘must-haves’ when they are launched in various cities. But amidst all the fanfare, how often do we pause to think about the workers who toil at the factories to churn out these fashionable products.

As part of the discussion of "The Forum on Global Citizenship Education" held in July 2010 and organised by the 17th World Council of YMCAs, participants were asked to take part in a role-playing game to imitate workers in the China-based factory which is a main manufacturer of iPhone. They were given a quota to meet to make ‘paper” iPhones and told not to talk or request washroom breaks – otherwise their wages would be reduced or they may even be dismissed from the plant.

After participating in the game, Carmen Hui, a university student from Hong Kong, said, “Non-skilled workers are under tremendous pressure to make ends meet and are often subjected to harsh working conditions.”

“They are in a disadvantaged position when it comes to bargaining for a fair, respectable and reasonable employment environment.  This is why it is important for organisations such as YMCAs to empower the workers by providing them with labour rights education,” Ms Hui added.

Kenny Tang, Deputy-in-Charge of Knowledge Management and Strategy Section of the Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong, who led the workshop said opportunities of real-life exposure should be provided for youth to get a taste of how people are under-privileged or exploited in other parts of the world.

“Young people, especially those growing up in Hong Kong, don’t have compassion for social problems facing other people living in a less fortunate state,” Tang said. “Even though they learn about these issues at school, surrounded by the hedonistic and materialistic lifestyle of Hong Kong, these problems seem remote to them.”

He added that the YMCA in Hong Kong had sent youth to countries such as Myanmar and the Philippines to expose them to poverty and hunger. “Young people returning from the trip are telling their peers about their experiences and their new-found compassion and empathy with the poor. The exchange opportunities have a long-lasting impact on them,” he said.

Workshop participants shared their opinions about global citizenship which is both an awareness and act of commitment rooted in the spirit of global consciousnesses and interdependencies of the world.

Goshi Ito from Japan and member of Asia Pacific Alliance of YMCA Youth Committee said, "Global citizenship entails having a sense of making changes for a better world, and global citizenship education is about inspiring youth to make a better world."

“In becoming global citizens, young people should read the newspapers, explore different issues and pay attention to problems faced by other people,” said Jose Varghese, Executive Secretary for Programmes of Asia Pacific Alliance of YMCA.

Almost 1 200 YMCA delegates from 85 countries were gathered in Hong Kong from 17-24 July for the 17th World Council of YMCAs. They discussed and mapped out the future of the YMCA for the next four years revolving around the theme of “Striving for a Global Citizenship for All”.

Anjan Mukherjee, YMCA of India

In a place as economically successful and growth-oriented as Hong Kong, it may seem rather anachronous to be learning lessons on micro-financing from the Bangladesh and Ecuador YMCAs. But this sharing of ideas fell under the spotlight at the 17th World Council of YMCAs, themed ‘Striving for global citizenship for all’ which was held in Hong Kong from 17-24 July 2010 and attended by almost 1 200 YMCA delegates from 85 countries.

Current economic buzzwords are impetus, imagination and initiative, and these certainly apply to how the lives of the indigent population in their respective countries have been changed through YMCA micro-financing initiatives.

Largely agrarian, 60% of Bangladesh’s population lives below the poverty line (on less than USD1 a day). Twelve YMCAs in Bangladesh, with just 2,000 Christian members support and develop 447 small self-help groups, each with around 20-25 members. Of these, 427 groups are comprised of women.

Since 1998, through community-based micro-financing, these groups have increased their initial net worth of USD 106 000 by 50%. “In six years, we have advanced small loans to over 6,000 people. Many of these are agro-economic, which benefits the poorest of the poor. The entire co-op group stands as guarantee for a single borrower and in this way, we have ensured that our repayment rate is 100%,” said Duncan Chowdhury, National Secretary, YMCA Bangladesh.

The social impact on the indigent communities is enormous, according to Chowdhury, who has witnessed the income-level of this section of the population steadily increasing. The far-reaching spin-offs are felt in improved schooling, health, sanitation, safe drinking water, social forestry, poultry, and cattle-rearing.

An innovative success story in Ecuador is that of a partnership between micro-credit institution CESOL and YMCA Ecuador, involving ‘economia solidaria’. This economy of solidarity includes millions of marginalised people who were pushed into poverty by the dominant economic pattern.

YMCA Ecuador has been active in the country for the last 50 years, committed to comprehensive development of young women and men, children, families and the community, mainly in Quito, Portoviejo, and Santo Domingo de Los Tsachilas. CESOL stimulates productive and economic ventures through micro-credit and training.

“We work using a concept of social credit, which involves social groups and promotes responsibility and social commitment among partners and the community through proper training. Development areas include managing credit, gender relations, self-esteem and computer skills,” said Ms. Silvina Gernaert Williams, National Secretary, YMCA Ecuador.

Some 650 men and 1,950 women are associated with this enterprise, and 13,000 families in the southern region of Quito, the city of Portoviejo, and the province of Santo Domingo de Los Tsachilas have benefited from this programme. Small loans have been granted to around 4,000 beneficiaries so far, with the volume of loans disbursed rising from USD66,000 to USD2 million in a couple of years.

(3 August, Hong Kong) Participants at the ‘Youth, Global Citizenship and Economic Justice: Food issues and Hunger’ workshop of the 17th World Council of YMCAs called for more action to eradicate hunger, saying that the ‘great divide’ in the global food distribution has caused the polarised problems of obesity and starvation.

“There is enough food to feed everyone in the world but we have problems on both sides of our lived realities that hinge around food,” said Dr. Pablo Prado from Guatemala who is a YMCA volunteer and social science professor with the University of San Carlos.

Based on the United Nations' estimate in 2009, one sixth of the worlds 6.6 billion people suffer from hunger, whereas around 1 billion people are considered obese.

Dr. Prado, who is also a YMCA delegate to the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), an international network of churches and faith-based organisations, introduced the ‘Food For Life’ campaign last year to promote three objectives: just production, just consumption and the right to food.“We can’t depend only on goodwill to fulfil a need as basic as food. We need to fully understand and promote the right to food,” he said.

Dr Prado said chronic hunger was taking a serious toll on the physical and mental development of children in his country. He said the system was perpetuated as operators of major companies in the country wanted to maintain the cheap labour force so as to drive profits for their businesses.

“If a child doesn’t eat properly for a prolonged period of time, his or her body and brain won’t develop fully.  They tend to perform poorly in school, and thus have their future compromised,” Dr Prado said, adding that many of them ended up in menial jobs earning meagre wages.

“The rich people in the country are not interested in changing the situation as they need the cheap labour force to boost the profits,” Dr Prado said.

Cardin Kumm of YMCA Germany said children in the developed economies should be taught to value food. “Our problem is not so much about being overweight. From my work with young children, I can see they don’t understand the value of food. They always complain that the food is not good enough and that once they get enough food, they throw the rest away.”

“We need to educate children to treasure food and how other people are dealing with hunger every day,” she added.

Samual Wohns of YMCA of USA said it was important to have education campaigns at the community level. “We eat to live but should not live to eat. People have to approach food from a social justice perspective,” he said.

Almost 1 200 YMCA delegates from 85 countries were gathered in Hong Kong from 17-24 July 2010 to discuss and map out the future of YMCA for the next four years, especially with respect to its role in global issues ranging from poverty and hunger, youth advocacy, gender equality to climate change and environmental protection.

Find out more on the Food For Life Campaign at http://www.e-alliance.ch/en/s/food/

Media Enquiries
Gil Harper
World Alliance of YMCAs
Tel: +852 5167 9520 
Email: media(at)ymca.int

Ms Anna Lee
A-World Consulting
Tel: +852 2864 4882
Email: anna.lee(at)a-world.com.hk

The World Alliance of YMCAs is a global ecumenical, volunteer-led movement that works for social justice and peace, with a particular emphasis on youth. As a Christian-based organisation, we work with communities irrespective of religion, race, gender or cultural background, to ensure a more just social order and youth empowerment for a better future.  Formed in 1844, and active in 125 countries with 45 million members, the YMCA is one of the largest and oldest youth movements in the world.www.ymca.int

(23 July 2010, Hong Kong) YMCAs have scaled up a disaster preparedness plan to facilitate and beef up emergency relief work globally, with the support of Y Care International.

“The disaster preparedness programme is being established as a result of working with YMCAs who have responded to disasters,” said Claire O’Meara, Emergency Programme Coordinator of Y Care International who chaired a workshop organised at the 17th World Council of YMCAs, "When Disaster Strikes! The role of YMCAs in responding to disasters and conflict".

While YMCAs focus on youth empowerment and development, because of their connection to and rootedness in the community, they are in a unique position to respond effectively to disasters or emergencies.

“Because of our substantial local membership base, we are able to mobilise local volunteers like we did in Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007/8. We worked at ground level, assisting people in the camps, integrating children into our schools, coordinating food and medical relief and providing sports and recreation,” said Jared Musima, National General Secretary of the YMCA Kenya. After the crisis was under control, YMCA Kenya then rolled out a peace ambassador programme and is, in fact, still working with those affected by the violence.

“At the same time, we are now involved in the ‘One Million Campaign’ in the run-up to the 2012 elections where we are preparing our youth for the elections. We are using our Subject to Citizen model for training and sensitisation, and plans involve youth as peace ambassadors and election observers. We want to ensure that the youth play a positive role in the elections this time and are not part of the violence, either as perpetrators or violence.” 

O’Meara said the rationale behind a preparedness programme came about after learning from past experiences. Y Care International has channeled money to Senegal to respond to floods, Haiti to respond to the earthquake, and Sri Lanka to respond to the internally displaced persons crisis. According to O’Meara, disaster preparedness planning is a “very critical component of emergency response” which ensures the relief process is much smoother, quicker and easier to target the specific needs of those requiring assistance.

“Y Care International works with YMCAs to draft disaster preparedness plans. We are working with YMCAs in Sri Lanka, Madagascar and Liberia to produce a guide for the preparedness mechanism,” she added.

“Disaster preparation involves discussions with volunteers, young people we work with and the community. It is a participative consultation process. It is vital that those who benefit understand in their heads and are committed to in their hearts, because they were engaged with the consultation process, and they believe it is the right decision,” Ms O’Meara said.

Workshop participants highlighted that the key to effective disaster relief is the interplay between having local needs and voices represented and understood, and the active and quick response from the international community to cater to those specific needs. “Any relief effort must respect mutuality and impartiality,” emphasised O’Meara.

Almost 1 200 YMCA delegates from 85 countries are gathering in Hong Kong this week to discuss and map out the future of YMCA for the next four years, especially with respect to its role in global issues ranging from poverty and hunger, youth advocacy, gender equality to climate change and environmental protection.

Media Enquiries
Gil Harper
World Alliance of YMCAs
Tel: 5167 9520 
Email: media(at)ymca.int
Ms Anna Lee
A-World Consulting
Tel: 2864 4882 / 9150 1890
Fax: 2865 2559
Email: anna.lee(at)a-world.com.hk

The World Alliance of YMCAs is a global ecumenical, volunteer-led movement that works for social justice and peace, with a particular emphasis on youth. As a Christian-based organisation, we work with communities irrespective of religion, race, gender or cultural background, to ensure a more just social order and youth empowerment for a better future.  Formed in 1844, and active in 125 countries with 45 million members, the YMCA is one of the largest and oldest youth movements in the world. www.ymca.int

By Rebecca Morton Doherty, for World Alliance of YMCAs

(21 July 2010, Hong Kong) This morning, 100 YMCA leaders were presented with a “million dollar investment opportunity”; the chance to invest in the future of the global YMCA movement and change the lives of thousands more young people around the world. USD78,550 was pledged on the spot from YMCAs, as well as individual staff, volunteers and youth.

As part of the 17th World Council of YMCAs, taking place from 19-24th July in Hong Kong, a group of YMCA leaders from across the world was invited to participate in an Investor’s Circle meeting. Dr Bart Shaha, Secretary General of the World Alliance of YMCAs, and Johan Vilhelm Eltwik, General Secretary of YMCA Europe, shared information on a resource mobilisation process that was initiated in 2008, and that is already reaping significant rewards. Work has been done at national, regional and world level to improve the YMCA’s capacity to raise funds. In particular, this has focused on governance, financial management, communications, programme development and proposal writing. This work, financed by an initial seed fund of USD500 000 has already generated over USD1 million.

During the Investors Circle meeting, YMCA area leaders from Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe and Latin America presented plans for phase two (2010-2014), which aims to raise a further USD3 million from external sources to strengthen YMCAs worldwide and increase their impact on youth and communities.

Impressed and inspired by the success of phase one of this work, in less than 15 minutes 34 individuals and 15 YMCAs pledged financial support to continue work to increase the visibility, social relevance, and organisational capacity of YMCAs so that they are better placed to raise, manage and report on funds from external donors.

YMCA England sent a powerful message to other National Movements, by making the first pledge of USD50 000 to support this process. John Lilley of YMCA Canada was the first to make a personal commitment to be an individual donor to this process with USD1 000.

“Phase two is for those who hold a vision for the YMCA that is without boundaries. It is for those who are inspired by the collective power and untapped potential of the full YMCA family. It is for those who are proud to stand for global youth by standing for the global movement,” said Dr. Bart Shaha.

Picture Captions:

Picture 2: Maria José Volpe Arouca from Brazil

Media Enquiries
Gil Harper
World Alliance of YMCAs
Tel: 5167 9520
Email: media(at)ymca.int

Anna Lee
A-World Consulting
Tel: 2864 4882 / 9150 1890
Email: anna.lee(at)a-world.com.hk
 

World Council: Every four years YMCAs around the world from 125 countries gather together to convene the World Council, the highest policy-making body of the YMCA movement as well as its most representative expression. Since the 15th World Council in 2002 youth pre-Council events provide young people the opportunity for leadership development and training, exchange and fellowship. This is the 17th World Council.

The World Alliance of YMCAs is a global ecumenical, volunteer-led movement that works for social justice and peace, with a particular emphasis on youth. As a Christian-based organisation, we work with communities irrespective of religion, race, gender or cultural background, to ensure a more just social order and youth empowerment for a better future. Formed in 1844, and active in 125 countries with 45 million members, the YMCA is one of the largest and oldest youth movements in the world. www.ymca.int