Editorial

By: Carlos Sanvee - General Secretary

 

Those of us at the Africa YMCA Partnership Summit and Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) were fascinated by the performance of the YMCA Tema Acapela group. This team of five young people harmonise beautifully. Their talent was put to use to illustrate the alignment process of Africa Alliance and its members – they each sang a different song individually and the sounds were powerful, but then they sang these different songs together with disastrous results.

 

Are we jazzing together? Are we “synching” (for synchronizing) or sinking? These are some of the questions raised and addressed at the Partnership Summit. This Summit provided the opportunity to harmonise our shared vision and related imperatives with our partners. As a group of people committed to the same vision we have identified areas where we will “jazz together”. These are development of human resources, management, board effectiveness membership development, leadership, communications (internal and external), sesource mobilisation and partnership relations.

 

Principles and key objectives related to each of these areas were discussed and agreed upon. In general it was accepted that the key function of partnership relations is to strengthen the YMCA at all levels. Furthermore, it was accepted that partnership relations should:
• have a clear purpose and negotiated agreement with shared objectives;
• be focused on mutual learning and commit time and effort to intercultural learning and understanding;
• aspire to a mature relationship – dynamic, growth focused, changing as needed; and
• actively involve young people in partnership processes and activities.

 

At the end of the Summit and the OGM the overall feeling was that we were equipped for some great institutional Acapela music. As much work needs to be done to be better synchronized, specific milestones were fixed. This issue of Siyahamba relates the stories and outcomes of the meeting, reflecting another important step of our “marching” together.
Thanks to all…  Siyahamba!

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