The World-wide Movement -Anniversary Review Part 6

It was 1851 and the whole world was in London for the Great Exhibition - a grand showcase of British industry held in the specially constructed Crystal Palace. For the YMCA it seemed the perfect chance to try to spread their ideas worldwide. More than 300,000 leaflets about the YMCA's work were handed out and as result, branches were set up in the U.S.A and Canada. In 1852 George Williams himself set up a YMCA in Paris, and associations were formed in Adelaide and Calcutta. Over the next few years, letters were sent and visits were made between the countries and in 1855 it was decided to hold a conference of the YMCA's.  By this time Holland, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Belgium were also involved. The delegates decided to form a confederation, soon to be named the World Alliance of YMCA's.

The resolution they made about the aims of the YMCA, which became known as the Paris Basis, is still at the core of the movement today. It said: " The Christian Associations have for their Object the union of those young men who, regarding Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour according to the Scriptures, desire to be His disciples in their doctrine and in their life, and to associate their efforts for the extensions of His kingdom amongst young men." After the expansion of the YMCA into Western Europe, America, and the British colonies, the 1880s saw the start of a "missionary" movement to spread the association's work elsewhere in Africa, Asia and South America.

Members of YMCAs from Norway, Japan, America, Spain, Malaysia, and Scotland at an
international boy's camp at Windsor in 1927

After the 1888 World Conference, new associations were soon up and running in China, Japan, Korea, Syria, Cilicia, Egypt, the Turkish Empire, Uganda, Sierra Leone and the Cameroons. By the time of the Paris celebrations for the jubilee of the World Alliance, there were 7,676 YMCAs in 45 countries with a membership of 707.667. After the second world war, there was again an upsurge of growth, with associations formed in Malaya, Indonesia, the Caribbean, and Africa. This period also saw a great change within the World Alliance. Its perspective was broadening to embrace a wider Christian outlook and confront issues of world politics, development, and peace.

First with Nazism and Fascism, later with Communism, many European nations were finding their YMCAs crushed and outlawed by outlawed by hostile governments. At the same time, as the European empires in Asia and Africa diminished rapidly, a new generation of leaders was taking control in the developing world. As a natural consequence, the World Alliance elected its first president from outside the First World in 1955. Liberian economist Charles Sherman was, in fact, the first African to preside over any world organization.

The second African president of the Alliance, Endalkachew Makonnen, brought the reality of unstable world politics to the heart of the YMCA. He became Ethiopia's Prime Minister shortly after taking on the presidency in 1973 but in the following years was deposed in a military coup and shot. Throughout this period the YMCA was on the edge of the world's battle zones as its work with refugees, begun during the second world war, continued with Palestinians in Jordan, on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, with others in Zaire, Vietnam and Nigeria and later with the Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong. And the second world war YMCA secretaries in Asia were beginning to look closely at how best to work in countries where they, as Christians, were in the minority. In 1953 there was the first joint work with people of other religions, with a conference of YMCA leaders and Buddhist youth leaders in Ceylon.

At the same time, the YMCAs Christian basis was being re-examined. In the 1950s Sir Frank Willis, a former British national secretary who became an ecumenical consultant to the World Alliance, argued strongly that the YMCA should be an "inter-confessional" Christian movement - including not - Protestants: members of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. After opposition in some Quarters, Willis's views were gradually welcomed and in 1969 the first official Roman Catholic representatives attended the World Council in Nottingham. 

A street child learns carpentry on a vocational training programme in Viskaputam, India, supported by Y Care International

Today the YMCA in Ireland is working to heal rifts between Catholics and Protestants. In 1973 the Christian foundation of the worldwide YMCA - the Paris Basis - was reaffirmed at the World Council in Kampala, Uganda. Delegates added new interpretations, defining aims for associations: to work for equal opportunity and justice for all, foster love and understanding, honesty and creativity, share Christian experience and develop the whole person.

After Kampala, world development issues came to the fore. in 1976 the YMCAs of Asia called for a move from the old idea of a YMCA in the developed world sending money directly to a poorer partner, to a new system where all aid would pass through a central body into more carefully planned development projects. In 1984 the YMCAs of Great Britain and Ireland set up their own overseas development agency, Y Care International, to fulfill this aim. Y Care raises funds in Britain and Europe which in 1993 were channeled into 799 projects in 31 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and also aims to raise a sense of responsibility towards third world issues. The projects, working towards better health, education and social welfare and economic growth, are run by local YMCA workers in the developing world.

In 1990, after the barriers between Eastern and Western Europe came down, the YMCA welcomed back Eastern Europeans who had been excluded from the association for decades.

Taken from 150th Anniversary Review