YMCA in Kosovo Blog

The scope of the YMCA's work was also moving in another direction - to include women and girls. The Young Women's  Christian Association, set up in 1855 was originally an alternative to the YMCA for women and has always been a separate organization. But by the 1960s women and girls were becoming involved with the YMCA - staying in hostels and joining mixed youth clubs. There were even some associations with clubs just for women. In response, in 1964 the national movement allowed women to become full members and encouraged local YMCAs to do the same. The 1960s and early 1970s were generally a time of re-assessment for the YMCA, centered on a 1970 report, "Changing Needs and New Perspectives". As a result of the report, it was decided to allow local YMCAs to have a single form of the membership, rather than full and associate membership if they wished. The conditions for this new membership did not stipulate that the member should be a Christian basis of the mo

After the second world war, as in 1918, the YMCA helped restore normality after the chaos. As well as organizing trips to war graves abroad for bereaved, the relatives, the association also established hostels for refugees from Germany, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia. The British YMCA helped 20,000 of these “European Volunteer Workers,” settle in Britain, Giving them a home while they worked in industry and farming. Afterlife settles into a peacetime routine, this most recent period in YMCA history has seen ventures to inject Christianity into the industry, a rapidly expanding and changing hostel programme, and a concentration on youth work, health and fitness, and training. Soon after the war ended, a whole new programme of work, focused on bringing Christian values into business and industry, began. The programme - based at residential centers at Kingsgate in Kent, Cheshunt College at Cambridge, Rhoose Youth College in Wales and Dunford House Sussex