Day of Plans and Strategy

First full day of meetings and discussion completed. You could not help but be impressed with what this YMCA is doing. The engagement of young people and their committment and ability is stunning.

At 8.45am today I counted approximately 100 young people sitting in front of computer screens undergoing training in IT. We heard in the presentation this morning that 67% of the population are under 35 and 80% of the active population are unemployed. Staggering. Perhaps that is why the YMCA comes across with such passion to tackle the subsequent issues. It is great to see the Board members, CEO, Branch managers and senior staff including head of finance activitly contributing to the discussions on the new plan.

Also included in the group are the newly elected President and Vice President of the National Youth Council who are both young YMCA Volunteers.

One of the stakeholders present at the meeting, the president of the National Students Union said he was joined by the Federation of Liberian Youth in thanking the YMCA for their work on ensuring that youth issues are kept on the Governments agenda. The key areas of work that the YMCA in Liberia fall under three key themes, 'Youth Leadership', 'Education and Employment' and 'Health & Environment'. Their strap line is 'Empowering Young People for the African Renaissance'. Heading off now for a debrief on today before dinner with Carlos from African Alliance, Steve and Darlene from Totonto Canada, Ricco fromm Y USA and Harriet from Y Care International. I have not forgot about the promissed post on the former young combatants and we are also paying a courtesy visit to the Vice President of the Republic of Liberia. Expect more tomorrow,

Discovering the YMCA Liberia

My second day of fact finding about the YMCA took me on three visits. The first was to the Paynesville YMCA Community school. Offering formal education to some 457 children and young people. Jacob Sandolo, Principle of the school beams with pride we he told me the school was intended to take 350 pupils but due to the quality of the education and levels of attainment,the school population has grown to 457 pupils.

The education attainments are achieved through 16 Teachers working in 12 Classrooms.

We moved on to visit two placements under a EU and Comic Relief funded programme. This programme is entitled the'Supporting youth livihood Project' The first was to visit a 'one student' placement in electronics;

There have been 579 completers on this programme with 55% of completers being in work or self employed when a follow up survey was carried out. Moving on then to a placement in motor mechanics and here two students are on placement.

truely inspirational work. In my next post I hope to share a motor bike project with former young combatants from the Civil war which only ended in 2003.

The YMCA in Liberia is Buzzin

Let me see if I can something of the life in the YMCA in Liberia, West Africa. The YMCA runs a programme of Intersport activities across the country and recently 2000 young people attended an event. The YMCA coordiates a network of Youth Councils in sixteen schools all organisted by young YMCA volunteers. The YMCA provides IT training with 1080 young people participating at any one time. The YMCA runs a series of Holiday programmes across the city of Monrovia attracting 900 children every day. The YMCA struggles to cover their overheads when delivering contracted work and the YMCA wresltes with identifying soft outcomes. The YMCA is alive and buzzin in Liberia.

Orientation in Monrovia

Arrived safe and well in Monrovia as did the bag. So what am I doing in Liberia? Within the Global YMCA, since 2006, we have been engaged in what we call the Global Operating Plan (GOP) and one of the key features is Movement Strengthening. This is where a group of people from across the YMCA Movement come together to carry out a diaognostic visit at the invitation of the National Movement, That group will consider how clear the Mission of that Movement is, are the programmes it delivers solially relevant and how sustainable is that National Movement. We in YMCA England have been considering how we might better engage with our colleagues in Africa, so when the invitation came in for YMCA England to join this group we were delighted to accept. Over the next few days a group made up of people from neigbouring African Movements, Canada, USA, Y are International and ourselves will meet with Board members and Staff of the YMCA In Liberia alongside the Secretary General of the African Alliance to consider the GOP in relation to The YMCA Movement in Liberia. Today I have engaged in some orientation visits and tours to begin to acquent myself with the Movement here. Harriet Knox, Africa Programme Manager with Y Care International and E Tim Kamabockai, Development Secretary for the YMCA in Monrovia have been extreemly helpful and thoughtful towards me.

I really hope I can catpure the work,passions and committment of all who are involved here over the next few days.

Into Africa

5th/6th November 2012 Well my first, what I will call,'Proper Visit' to Africa has begun. At 'Check In' in Newcastlle International Airport at 4.00pm Monday, the check in person said 'I have been working Check In here for BA for six years and this is the first time I have checked someone in to that airport (Monrovia), would you like your bag checked through to Libiya, my response was 'no thanks I am going to Liberia'. I soon discover that todays flight via Heathrow is the first time BA has flown there. So at 10.45pm we took off into the night sky over London, embarking on what turned out to be a 6 1/2 hour roller coaster flight to Free Town, the capital of Siera Leon when some 90% of the passenges disembarked at 5.30am leaving about thirty of us on the massive Boing 767. Just as we reached the start of the runway in Free Town the sky lite up as the African Sun rose above the horizon. We took off towards that sunrise and on the way to Monrovia in Liberia. Signing off at 16500 feet going at 484 miles per hour over Africa, I pause for just a moment really hoping my bag has not gone to Libiya :) In my next post I will tell you what I am doing in Liberia.

Auf Wiedersehen (Goodbye) Gorlitz

Hi All- it is time to say good bye after an interesting 5 days packed with lots of activities. Some of the highlights of the meeting have been listening to Lenin a young person from Russia share his experience on volunteering in Germany and also hearing YMCAs share their learning. On the entertainment side, we had an intercultural night on Saturday where we got to enjoy the diversity of European cultures through food, music, dance and dance. There was no better way of ending the day whose afternoon was punctuated with an excursion of Gorlitz!!! There is a great sense of enthusiasm from the whole group as we look forward to strengthening the networks that have been birthed. Next meeting will be held in November 2013 and we hope there would have been progress on this seminar’s outcomes.

Volunteers for Europe

Greetings from the beautiful city of Görlitz right at Germany’s eastern border with Poland where I am attending the 2012 VfE seminar with 17 YMCA staff and volunteers from 12 European countries. In case you’ve not heard of Görlitz before, it is a historical city that has a population of 50,000 people and is famous for its rich cultural heritage dating back to the 17th Century. Once called the Via Regia (street of the King) Görlitz was a very important trading route that linked Germany to many Eastern European cities. YMCA presence in Görlitz was suspended during the Separation of Germany till the 1990s and this beautiful city now houses the YMCA regional offices for Upper Schlesische Oberlansitz. Special thanks go to YMCA Germany, the seminar sponsors for leading on putting this interesting event together. It has been a time of reflection as we each talked about the different opportunities we offer or are looking at offering to out volunteers. Our discussions have definitely highlighted ways YMCAs in Europe can contribute to the development of volunteers’ programmes under the European Voluntary Service. It is not a one size fits all but through creativity, passion and commitment to impacting lives of young people, YMCAs can help give their young people a chance to participate in these life changing experiences! Partner finding is now the buzz word…. Watch this space for more. From Joy Namayanja YMCA England