YMCA
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Vernier, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches worldwide. It was founded in London on 6 June 1844 by George Williams as the Young Men's Christian Association. The organization's stated aim is to put Christian values into practice by developing a healthy body, mind, and spirit.
From its inception, YMCA grew rapidly, ultimately becoming a worldwide movement founded on the principles of muscular Christianity. Local YMCAs deliver projects and services focused on youth development through a wide variety of youth activities, including providing athletic facilities, holding classes for a wide variety of skills, promoting Christianity, and humanitarian work.
YMCA is a non-governmental federation, with each independent local YMCA affiliated with its national organization. The national organizations, in turn, are part of both a geographically regional area alliance and the World Alliance of YMCA. YMCA programs vary between nations and regions, but are all based on the principles espoused in the Paris Basis.
The YMCA is a parachurch organization based on Protestant values. Similar organizations include the YWCA, and the Young Men's Hebrew Association. The YWCA is independent of the YMCA, but a few local and national YMCA and YWCA associations have merged into YM/YWCAs or YMCA-YWCAs and belong to both organizations, while providing the programs from each.
In popular culture, the YMCA is the subject of the 1978 song "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People.
History
19th century
The Young Men's Christian Association was founded on 6 June 1844, by George Williams and eleven friends. Williams was a London draper who was typical of the young men drawn to the cities by the Industrial Revolution. They were concerned about the lack of healthy activities for young men in major cities; the options available were usually taverns and brothels. Williams' idea grew out of meetings he held for prayer and Bible-reading among his fellow workers in a business in the city of London, and on 6 June 1844, he held the first meeting that led to the founding of YMCA with the purpose of "the improving of the spiritual condition of young men engaged in the drapery, embroidery, and other trades." The first YMCA premises opened on Great Russell Street, London, in 1844. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury served as YMCA's first president from 1851 until his death in 1885.By 1845, YMCA started a popular series of lectures that from 1848 were held at Exeter Hall, London, and started being published the following year, with the series running until 1865.
YMCA was associated with industrialization and the movement of young people to cities to work. YMCA "combined preaching in the streets and the distribution of religious tracts with a social ministry. Philanthropists saw them as places for wholesome recreation that would preserve youth from the temptations of alcohol, gambling, and prostitution and that would promote good citizenship."
The YMCA spread outside the United Kingdom in part thanks to the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first in a series of World's Fairs which was held in Hyde Park, London. Later that year there were YMCAs in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States.
The idea of creating a truly global movement with an international headquarters was led by Henry Dunant, Secretary of YMCA Geneva, who would later go on to found the International Committee of the Red Cross and win the first Nobel Peace Prize. Dunant successfully convinced YMCA Paris to organize the first YMCA World Conference. The Conference took place in August 1855, bringing together 99 young delegates from nine countries, held before the Exposition Universelle. They discussed joining in a federation to enhance cooperation amongst individual YMCA societies. This marked the beginning of the World Alliance of YMCAs. The conference adopted the Paris Basis, a common mission for all present and future national YMCAs. Its motto was taken from the Bible, "That they all may be one".
Other ecumenical bodies, such as the World YWCA, the World Council of Churches, and the World Student Christian Federation have reflected elements of the Paris Basis in their founding mission statements. In 1865, the fourth World Conference of YMCAs, held in Germany, affirmed the importance of developing the whole individual in spirit, mind, and body. The concept of physical work through sports, a new concept for the time, was also recognized as part of this "muscular Christianity".
The Boy Scouts of America grew out of YMCA work, with YMCA organizers taking over and merging their organization into the Boy Scouts of America soon after it was incorporated by William D. Boyce when it existed only on paper. Edgar M. Robinson, a Chicago-area YMCA organizer became the BSA's first director. YMCA has cooperated with camping organizations, including Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of the USA and Camp Fire.
Two themes resonated during the first World Conference: the need to respect the local autonomy of YMCA societies, and the purpose of YMCA: to unite all young, male Christians for the extension and expansion of the Kingdom of God. The former idea is expressed in the preamble:
YMCA was influential during the 1870s till the 1930s, when it most successfully promoted "evangelical Christianity in weekday and Sunday services, while promoting good sportsmanship in athletic contests in gyms and swimming pools." Later in this period, and continuing on through the 20th century, YMCA had "become interdenominational and more concerned with promoting morality and good citizenship than a distinctive interpretation of Christianity." Prior to the beginning of the American Civil War, YMCA provided nursing, shelter, and other support during wartime in the United States.
In 1878, the World YMCA offices were established in Geneva, Switzerland by Dunant. Later, in 1900, North American YMCAs, in collaboration with the World YMCA, set up centres to work with emigrants in European ports, as millions of people were leaving for the US. In 1880, in Norway, YMCA became the first national organization to adopt a strict policy of equal gender representation in committees and national boards.
In 1885, Camp Baldhead, the first residential camp in the United States and North America, was established by George A. Sanford and Sumner F. Dudley, both of whom worked for YMCA. The camp, originally located near Orange Lake in New Jersey, moved to Lake Wawayanda in Sussex County, New Jersey, the following year, and then to the shore of Lake Champlain near Westport, New York, in 1891.
20th century
YMCA Scouts
YMCA was one of the earliest organizers of Boy Scouts in the United Kingdom from 1907, before there were central Scout organizations. Some of the first recorded Boy Scout troops were YMCA Boy Scouts who met in the Nottingham and Birkenhead YMCA buildings. YMCA Scouts in Britain remained separate troops under the YMCA but registered with local and central scout associations. Later, when Robert Baden-Powell formed his own Boy Scouts organization, a YMCA worker who had organized many YMCA Boy Scout troops became one of his first two travelling organizers. In Devonport, Tasmania, Australia, YMCA Boy Scouts met at the YMCA hall and later affiliated as 1st Devonport Boy Scouts with the Tasmanian branch of The Boy Scouts Association. The YMCA would also influence the Boy Scouts of America and German Scouting. Edgar M. Robinson, a Chicago-area YMCA administrator, worked at YMCA while also becoming the BSA's first director. In Europe, national YMCA Scout organizations were formed.In 1916, K. T. Paul became the first Indian national general secretary of India. Paul had started rural development programs for self-reliance of marginal farmers, through co-operatives and credit societies. These programmes became very popular. He also coined the term "rural reconstruction", and many of the principles he developed were later incorporated into the Indian's government nationwide community development programs. In 1923, Y. C. James Yen, of YMCA China, devised the "thousand character system", based on pilot projects in education. The method also became very popular, and in 1923, it led to the founding of the Chinese National Association of the Mass Education Movement. In 1878, YMCA was organized near the Jaffa Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem and the current landmark building was dedicated by General Lord Allenby in 1933 during the British Mandate of Palestine.
Within ten days of the declaration of World War I, YMCA had established 250 recreation centres, also known as huts, in the United Kingdom, and went to build temporary huts across Europe to support both soldiers and civilians alike, run by thousands of volunteers. Many soldiers from WW1 were a part of the YMCA and helping with spreading religion in these camps and boosting morale. Some of them, known as field secretaries, also went into war zones to support prisoners-of-war in Europe and Russia. Notable supporters and volunteers included Clementine Churchill, Oswald Chambers and Robert and Olave Baden-Powell. Within the first month the YMCA Women's Auxiliary was formed, and Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein would go on to become a notable member and chairman of its organizing committee.
During World War I, YMCA raised and spent over $155 million on welfare efforts for American soldiers. It deployed over 25,000 staff in military units and bases from Siberia to Egypt to France. They took over the military's morale and comfort operations worldwide. Irving Berlin wrote Yip Yip Yaphank, a revue that included a song entitled "I Can Always Find a Little Sunshine in the YMCA". Frances Gulick was a YMCA worker stationed in France during World War I who received a United States Army citation for valour and courage on the field.
During World War II, YMCA was involved in supporting millions of POWs and in supporting Japanese Americans in internment camps. This help included helping young men leave the camps to attend Springfield College and providing youth activities in the camps. In addition, YMCA was one of seven organizations that helped to found the USO.
In Europe, YMCA helped refugees, particularly displaced Jews. Sometimes YMCA participated in escape operations. Mostly, however, its role was limited to providing relief packages to refugees.
It was also involved in war work with displaced persons and refugees. It set up War Prisoners Aid to support prisoners of war by providing sports equipment, musical instruments, art materials, radios, gramophones, eating utensils, and other items. Donald A. Lowrie of the YMCA created and led the Committee of Nîmes, also known as the Camps Committee, a group that gathered leaders from over twenty humanitarian organizations to coordinate advocacy for people in the internment camps, including helping children leave these camps to live in children's colonies or eventually escape to freedom.
YMCA Motion Picture Bureau, renamed Association Films in 1946, was one of the United Kingdom's largest non-theatrical distribution companies. In 1947 the World YMCA gained special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. In 1955 the first black President of the World YMCA, Charles Dunbar Sherman from Liberia, was elected. At 37 years, he was also the youngest president in World YMCA history. In 1959 YMCA of the USA developed the first nationally organized scuba diving course and certified their first skin and scuba diving instructors.
By 1974, YMCA had set up a curriculum to begin teaching cave diving.
In 1973, the Sixth World Council in Kampala, Uganda, became the first World Council in Africa, hosted by Uganda YMCA. It reaffirmed the Paris Basis and adopted a declaration of principles, known as the Kampala Principles. It include the principles of justice, creativity and honesty. It stated what had become obvious: that a global viewpoint was more necessary. It also recognized that YMCA and its national member organizations would have to take political stands, particularly in international challenges and crises.
In 1976, YMCA of the USA appointed Violet King Henry to executive director to its Organizational Development Group, making her the first woman named to a senior management position with the American national YMCA.
In 1985, the World Council of YMCAs passed a resolution against apartheid, and anti-apartheid campaigns were formed under the leadership of Lee Soo-Min, the first Asian secretary general of the World YMCA.
In 1998, the 14th World Council of YMCAs in Germany adopted "Challenge 21", intended to place more focus on global challenges, such as gender equality, sustainable development, war and peace, fair distribution, and the challenges of globalization, racism, and HIV/AIDS.