An eye opener from Poland

Early May this year myself, my CEO & about 8 other volunteers at Bolton YMCA & its partner organisations got the chance to visit Southern Poland on a Cultural visit. The members of the group with ages from 20 to 72 came from a wide range of backgrounds but all had some connection with Bolton YMCA.

During our stay at a small hostel in Lanckorona, about 40 km from Krakow we were able to experience a range of different sights & food, along with work towards team & personal development. The places we had the chance to visit included the world famous Wieliczka Salt Mines, the Cathedral where Saint John Paul II used to give mass, Krakow Market & Castle, Lanckorona Castle & Auschwitz. We couldn't help but be left in awe of the Salt Mines, the market in Krakow has to be one of the best places in the world to get anything & everything Amber, & those of faith found the walk taking the route of pilgrims to the Cathedral particularly special. In addition to these visits we also got involved in helping the centre where we were staying with some much needed weeding & painting their perimeter fence, along with visiting the local school to help some of their students with their English. Most nights we would eat out at a local restaurant, however one night we had a barbecue & a lovely Fire we set up ourselves.

Overall probably the most influential experience of the trip was the visit to Auschwitz. It brought some of our group to tears & moved all. Although the holocaust is something that is taught in Schools, prior to the visit it was easy to think that it was in some far off place & that what happened is so distance from the present. You couldn't be more wrong – It was only an hour & a half minibus ride from our Lovely Village of Lanckorona that one of our group called 'Paradise.' The grass, trees & sunshine over the the two Auschwitz camps we visited easily betrayed the horror of what took place here 70 years ago.

Another impression gained from school history lessons was that people went to Auschwitz & lived there for 5 years, & that those that survived were the lucky ones. Learning about the conditions & procedures there we found out that if you went to Auschwitz-Birkenau and happened to be Young, Old, Disabled, with Children or simply just Female, you would be sent straight to the gas chambers. If you were 'fortunate' to look healthy, strong and/or male you would be worked to death, if you didn't die from disease or brutality first. The average life span of people spared for forced labour was between 3 & 6 months, however in the records we were shocked to discover that in reality many only lasted a matter of weeks. Those that survived until liberation you can only imagine were left totally broken by the event & the hard choices they had to make to survive. Our experience of the visit reminded us of how fortunate we are to be alive now under a democracy & how important it is to make sure that history should never be allowed to repeat itself.

For me personally the experience that had the most impact on me was the visit to Krakow's YMCA. Like our YMCA at Bolton, you could see that the building was large, old & could do with some renovation, however what was clear to see once inside was that it was a hub for the community filled with enthusiastic staff. Whilst there we saw the large swimming pool they have in their basement along with their Gym, & Cafe/Shop. We learnt that unlike many YMCA's in England that Krakow YMCA receives little or no funding from the Polish Government & as such relies on Donations & charging users a small fee for using the facilities. The Cafe/Shop also provides the YMCA with another revenue stream.

What I found impressive was the Tenacity of the Polish YMCA Movement, which despite only being formed in 1919, persisted throughout the Second World War even whilst Poland was being occupied by the Nazis, & where it wasn't possible to operate in Poland, Polish YMCAs were set up where Jewish Refugees & Polish Soldiers relocated to during the war. During the war many people within the Polish YMCA movement who resisted the Nazi occupation in Poland & helped Jews escape persecution paid for their actions with their lives. Although YMCA was made illegal in Poland in 1949 whilst the country was under communist control, following the Collapse of the USSR, the YMCA movement like a Phoenix, rose from the ashes & re-established itself in Poland in 1990. Unfortunately, the YMCA movement in Poland still has not had most of its buildings & assets that were seized by the Communists in 1949 returned to this day by the current government.

All these experiences got me thinking about our YMCA movement. We have a lot be proud of as a movement, including its age, the things we have invented, been involved in, the good work we do, the sacrifices we have made as a movement & as individuals, since our formation in 1844. In terms of the English movement, the fact that it was an Englishman called George Williams who formed us in London is a big claim to fame.

But bragging to the rest of the international movements &  people across the world that we invented the YMCA 170 years ago, as awesome as it is, only gets us so far. What I am trying to say is in recent history we don't have anything that comes anywhere close to saying "THAT WAS US." Now I'm not asking for a new sport to be invented just so we can put English YMCAs back on the map, or a New World War so we can help out - Nobody would dream of that, and as a result of the dire situation in Ukraine we are close enough as it is.

Being the founding movement however, with a massive head start over all the other movements, we should be leading the way. Yet every time I go abroad & see another YMCA, I feel like we are lagging behind, when we should be the guiding light. I can't be the only person in our movement feeling this way, & in truth I know I am not.

This isn't about being in competition with YMCAs from other countries, it is about moving forward. Why? Because we are a movement!!! This is what movements do. As a movement we should never be content with where we are, yet I feel we have come to stand, or at the very least have slowed to a crawl.

Yes, we took part in the last Two World Challenge Events, & yes, we shouted for all the World to hear for the last one that we stand for "Young People & we want their voices to be heard," but are we really doing it? I am not so sure. Right now we are "recovering" from the biggest financial crisis in recent times, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, & have massive numbers of Young People without work. This is our call to action. This our time to stand up for Young People.

But maybe we are too busy looking after ourselves, our YMCA Movement, our YMCA buildings, our careers. Why? Because we have become too reliant on the Government & the funding from it, & too scared of what the people in power will do, if we truly stand up for all young people, not just those we serve. I can understand why decision makers at the top of the movement are making the decisions they are making. I can understand, but they are not always the right ones, in my eyes, or the Young People. These decisions are being made to maintain our movement in its current form the best they can.

As a trustee, albeit a young trustee, I know a number of the biggest threats that would have an impact on the survival of our YMCAs, and the YMCA movement is right to tackle all these threats in any way it can, but not at the expense of who we are. What we stand for.

We stand for Young People!!! Now that is a binary statement, we either do or we don't, there is no middle ground. When you say something like that you don't have a choice to pick & choose what fights you want to fight, & where you want to compromise. Yet maybe we are, maybe we are making choices primarily on the effect it will have on our YMCAs, at the expense of issues which affect the Young People, we said we stand for, possibly more than our organisation?

As I said already, We stand for Young People - That's all Young People, all the time, everytime.

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As a movement we are far too reliant on Government funding. We need to wake up to the reality that Young People are not a priority of this Government & it could be argued that they are not the priority of past or future governments, so rather than chasing crumbs that are only ever going to get fewer in number, at the expense of our soul, we should find another way. Maybe people have forgotten that our YMCA buildings, centres, & housing are just vehicles for the change, that YMCA does not need them to be a force for change. They help the change, they are not the change. Don't get me wrong, I can understand people's sentimentality to their own YMCAs, as I am to mine, but remember the building is just the building.

Not too long ago I saw an article about a large national charity of a similar age & Christian background to our organisation, who whilst doing its charity work was working alongside the DWP & Police. The people who the charity were working with were vulnerable people & the process of the charity working with the DWP & Police, was putting these people at risk of arrest or sanctions. This shocked me & made me question a charity which most people recognise as being a pillar of the community. It also made me wonder what their motive was behind this? Needless to say the revelation set a switch in my mind that I never ever want to be involved with them, because, in my eyes they had sold their soul.

Why does this matter? Because maybe people have forgotten that we as a YMCA are not here to judge Young People, we are here to help them. That we are an Non-governmental organisation founded on Christian values, which means we are not here to help governments criminalise or punish Young People. That movements, like the Polish YMCA which had survived Nazism & re-emerged post Communism, survived because people believe in the YMCA & the good work it does. That the Global YMCA movement survives & flourishes today because people believe in us.

Maybe people have also forgotten that our staff, our volunteers, our Chief Executives & board members, You & me, that they/we are just caretakers. This means we have to be responsible with the YMCA, it is not ours to break, so we must make sure we do the right thing by the Young People, so people continue to believe in the YMCA & for it to live on.

A wise man told me when I was much younger "It's your Youth Club." He was right, but not nearly enough. Our Youth Clubs, Housing, Help groups, etc, they don't just belong to the Young People, neither does the individual YMCA buildings, or the national YMCA body.

The whole YMCA movement belongs to the Young People.

And if that is so maybe it should be the Young People making the decisions, as they are the real stakeholders. Maybe instead of our boards being made up of mostly older people there should be a fairer balance. Maybe instead of our CEOs, voting on top down changes from our national governing body, Young People from our YMCAs should be voting. Maybe instead of us just saying we stand for young people, we actually stand for young people in every action we do & facilitate a way of enabling young people to unionise & stand up for themselves.

I hear all the time from people within the movement that we are 'Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.' Well sometimes I feel that those Giants have got shackles around them. We need to break these off. We, as part of a Global Movement, should not be afraid of standing against anyone in standing up for the rights & voices of Young People, for as long as we are united as YMCA nothing will ever come close to dwarfing us.

Now that I have got that off my chest, what should we do about it?