Soul in the YMCA Machine?

My perspective on World Council 2018 is perhaps a little different to most.

My main focus in attending the World Council has been to promote and encourage as many of the delegates as possible to view the play 'Soul in the Machine', a project that has lived with me for more than three years.

The play tells the story of Sir George Williams and the beginnings of YMCA.

As I reflect on the 3 years of developing this project, I can't quite believe that what started off as way unpacking our history for the team working at YMCA Humber has now found its way to Chiang Mai!?

That being said...whilst spending most of my time this week on the exhibition stand it is clear to see that this story is one that wants to be heard.

Conversations with Change Agents, Officers, Managers, Directors, Trustees and Presidents have highlighted just how rich  is in the 89 nations present, each YMCA demonstrating cultural and locally relevant services and programmes each with life transforming potential.

Such diversity and long standing unity across the world could not be maintained without a firm foundation and the interest in understanding how this was laid has great.

I write this blog during the first of six screenings, tonight showing in English, German and Korean, and tomorrow in Spanish, Japanese and a second screening in English making our story available to a greater audience whilst we are all gathered together.

If you want to know more about the play follow it on Twitter or Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/YMCASoul

https://twitter.com/YMCASoul

The council has focussed greatly on youth empowerment, and certainly with young people front and centre at this conference there has been a vibrancy I've never experienced within YMCA before.

How apt, that 175 years after 12 young men began this movement, we as YMCA are placing young people at the heart of the planning and delivery of our World Council.

I hope that this is just the start of YMCA genuinely allowing Young Men and Women to lead us within YMCA.

I best get back to the film...

19th YMCA World Council 2018

Blog written by Emma Osmundsen. Trustee YMCA England & Wales

It may be hot, it may be humid but as we gather as a YMCA family, it feels like paradise.

A kaleidoscopic of nations rejoined this morning for day 2 of the 19th YMCA World Conference. In anticipation of another busy day, I invested some small local currency to release a small basket of finches - for luck ....apparently!

Releasing the finches for me was not luck, it was enabling the finches freedom. 

Today’s theme is ENABLED FOR GOOD and the mornings devotions set the tone. The reading from 1 Timothy 4: 4-5, 7-12 recalled St Paul encouraging young Timothy to be an example, to be a leader that others emulate, and that his youth should be no barrier. Paul’s advice is to prepare yourself, be enabled, so that you can serve others. When we allow our skills, our abilities to be used by God ..... Paul says, we can do all things, through Christ at work within us.

The programme today has been packed, powerful and poignant, and that is before the evening’s entertainment starts! It has also been hard work as the morning was largely spent in working groups, discussing and debating the issues affecting young people across the globe. Sharing a working space with colleagues from every corner of the globe adds a degree of depth and experience unimaginable. From youth injustice in Zambia, unemployment in Japan, poverty and lack of education in Bangladesh, and poor self-esteem and youth mental health challenges in Germany, Denmark, Australia and the UK. Sadly many of the themes were uniform to all YMCA nations but the working group provided the space to share experiences, highlight opportunities for joint working and no doubt as the week progresses enable us to shape a common approach to dealing with some of these challenges for our young people. 

The challenges facing young people were reflected in the early afternoon’s presentation by Prof Marek Rymsza on the follow up research he has been conducting for the YMCA movement on ‘One Million Voices’ 2. This is follow up research on the original One Million Voices research conducted across 55 countries culminating in the largest survey of young people ever. Marek shared with us some of his preliminary findings highlighting 4 areas of concern for young people; employment, health, human rights and environment. Of particular interest was the recognition that young people identified 3 aspects of health: physical, psychological and spiritual and that they sought a balance of each. With regard to mental health, young people identified 5 main reasons for mental illness and disorder:

1. Stress

2. Internet and social media

3. Loneliness

4. Addictions to psychoactive substances

5. Unsafe living conditions

The conference stage welcomed Nyarrsdzayi Gumbonzvanda, a Human Rights Lawyer and former YWCA member for an inspirational speech on youth empowerment and active citizenship. She challenged us all to SPEAK UP! And SPEAK OUT! To go beyond the status quo,to deliver a clear and transformational agenda; to lead with impact; to harness the power of the rootedness of the YMCA movement and it’s legacy of never giving up and to further the evidence base for this work with more research and liberation of technology. 

The afternoon concluded with a Council Business Meeting featuring acceptance of the Safe Space Learning Report, the YMCA’s 2018-2022 Strategy and rememberance of former YMCA stalwarts including John Casey, Desta Girma, KM Philip, Erika Tysoe Duelken and  Phil Denison.

The day has certainly lived up to it’s theme, enabling for good, there is certainly lots to do but somehow being part of a global Christian movement gives you the sense that anything is possible.

Here’s to another evening of busy conference activity - I think the Harlem Globetrotters are in town!

First Morning at 19th YMCA World Council

Following a fairly early rise for breakfast at 7am with our national delegation, we crammed into a local red taxi to be taken back to the Empress Hotel. It was here that Purity Kiguatha led what seemed to be almost the whole World Council in a morning devotion – a time constituting fantastic worship, meaningful prayer and a powerful message on our creation for good purposes. This was begun by another traditional Thai dance.

Particularly poignant moments of the devotionals included Ernestine’s awe-inspiring rendition of Sinach’s ‘Waymaker’, as well as the morning’s inspirational art, which was an Indonesian sculpture placed underwater to help create a new coral reef, at a time of shrinking coral populations; truly important reminders of the consequences of our choices, and of our place as humanity.
An almost seamless transition into Johan V. Eltvik’s final speech as Secretary General ensued, during which, Johan took the entire room on a journey through his experiences of the last 4 years in his now-concluding role. Citing the 4 year old Our Way strategy, emphasising the incredible movement for youth empowerment and recounting fascinating memories of his time as Secretary General, it was indisputably a speech of global proportions, with memories from all across the planet, united by the YMCA. Through the videos, the ambiguous essence of the slogan “YE [youth empowerment] 4 Good” was really driven home, as the lasting impact of our work was demonstrated, whilst the powerful metaphor of seeing through the eyes of George Williams (our founder) was cleverly used with the presentation of the glasses themselves, even despite them not quite fitting Johan :)

Following this, a short coffee break, and then for voting delegates and observers, the business agenda. This is a time for tabling amendments to the constitution, and then for those voting to do so. While this overran, eventually helping to contribute to the group photo’s cancellation, it extension initiated an impromptu hokey-kokey, call and response activities, and singing. (much to the amusement of all those too 'boring' to join in!). However, any disappointment at its postponement was surely overcome by the prospect of lunch, anticipation for A/C, and high expectations for the afternoon. The photo shoot took place shortly afterwards.
 

(Joseph Clay) England & Wales

Monday 9^th July 2018

And I'm here.....19th World Council

After a long journey with not much feeling left in my pins & needles legs and not much sleep either it was all made better by a simple beaming smile from one of YMCA’s Chiang Mai’s volunteers greeting me as I walked through airport arrivals. The realisation struck me that I had arrived to the 19th World Council, something I had been looking forward to for so many months.
A short hop down the road I arrived at a grand Hotel and was grateful to start to settle into what is going to be my home for the next week. The next day quickly came and before I knew it, it was time for me to put my glam-rags on, grab my name badge and head off to the Opening Ceremony.
As I turned the last corner to the Centre doors I was instantly taken back by the large queue. Not by the size of the queue because of course us English love a queue, but by the wide range of coloured t-shirts representing so many YMCAs, 120 countries to be exact!

The atmosphere was buzzing as I walked through the large glass entrance doors, people smiling, hugging old YMCA friends, and just as important people introducing themselves to new faces, new friends. I strolled around the exhibition section speaking to YMCAs such as YMCA Kenya & YMCA Sri Lanka. YMCAs thousands of miles apart but all here for the same reason Youth Empowerment.
I took my seat in the main hall as the countries were introduced, each stood proudly, while everybody else across the world clapped and cheered loudly. Each country was of course announced by World YMCA President Peter Posner & Secretary General of the World YMCA Johan Vilhelm Eltvik. They were fantastic, their speeches informative and uplifting. They created fun & laughter as they later took to the stage, through the crowd in true Thailand style in small Tuk Tuk’s, creating YMCA’s very own Ant & Dec entrance!

However my favourite part was the Change Agents who flew us back in time and took us forward on a journey, explaining how Youth Empowerment was first set as a key YMCA priority for the future. How to action this is by YMCAs unifying for a collective impact to reach the 1.8 billion young people on the planet today and to turn the giant cog to build a World that empowers present & future generations. Of course this message was done a lot better than me, words on a screen. This was clever, vibrant performances of song, dance & acting that kept everybody engaged, spirits high and truly excited for the future.

Finally was the meal and as I came down the escalators I watched the world break bread together and in that moment was overwhelmed with pride & happiness that I was part of an incredible movement!

4 Years with YMCA Bimingham

I realised recently that I celebrated my 4 year anniversary with YMCA Birmingham. I’ve put together a few of my favourite moments so far in my journey. Thanks to all that have supported YMCA Birmingham and me so far! 

1. United Nations Economic Social Forum – Representing World/YMCA England & Wales as a Youth Ambassador at a United Nations Social Economic youth forum in New York. The forum provided a platform for youth to engage in a dialogue with Member States and to discuss the policy frameworks and promote innovative, approaches and initiatives for advancing youth development.
2. Parliament Visit/General Election Hustings - Organising a visit for young people to visit Parliament to speak about issues affecting them, helping shape a youth manifesto for the local area and arranging Hustings events which all promoted further opportunity for young people to have a voice in political matters.
3. Take-away Chefs - The project – Take Away Chefs – was a resident led programme which produced a booklet with healthy and easy-to-follow recipes, alongside a competition for two local schools to provide the artwork for the booklet. The project was highly commended from both the Money for Life Challenge and local MP Jack Dromey.
4. London Marathon - I have also ran London Marathon twice for YMCA Birmingham& England, that’s a bloody hard run but what an unbelievable feeling that you have conquered 26.2 miles and raised vital funds for vulnerable young people!
5. Unify - I was fortunate enough to be selected to represent YMCA Birmingham at the first Youth Unify conference in Lublin, Poland, I took a young person and lead my own small group of young people from all around Europe and it my role to facilitate time to consider and reflect upon YMCA’s Christian mission.
6.  Youth Matters Award - I was lucky enough to be put forward by the management team at YMCA Birmingham for the YMCA Matters Award. It was just an honour to be nominated, let alone win it. From winning the award I was promoted to the role Training and Employability officer in our brilliant Training team within our Social Enterprise
7.  Y-Care International, JAI Olive Picking Programme - I attended & took two young people from YMCA Birmingham to a 10 day project supporting Palestinian families in the villages of Wad Foukin, Beit Sahour, Teqou', Walaja and Beit Jala within the Bethlehem area, and tour within the Jerusalem area. This year, the program came under conditions of escalating settler attacks and Israeli army measures, which caused an increase in riots and popular resistance movements by Palestinian youth in various cities and villages throughout Palestine.
8.  Change Agents – The YMCA Change Agent programme is a World YMCA global leadership development programme to empower young leaders as change makers in their own communities, I’ve so far been on training programmes in France and Portugal. As part of the programme we build a project in our local community to support young people and help facilitate YMCA’s World Conference in Thailand.
9. Opening of the Chris Bryant Centre - The training team was fortunate enough to meet Princess Anne at the opening of the Chris Bryant Centre in Erdington. Princess Anne participated in a employability workshop and was great fun!
10. Princess Fiona - Many of my colleagues and friends from the gym will remmeber when I dressed as Princess Fiona to do a zumba class to raise money for residents at the Orchard, thanks Eileen and Emma for the makeup and dress!

It's not every day that you receive an email selecting you to represent YMCA at the UN

Blog written by Charlie Smith, Youth Ambassador from YMCA Norfolk, who represented YMCA England & Wales as part of World YMCA's delegation at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum, in New York, on Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 January.

It is not every day that you receive an email, stating that you have been selected to represent not only your local and national YMCA, but the World YMCA at the United Nations. Yup, the UNITED NATIONS. This is not small stuff but the big time. My immediate reaction was to pinch myself just to make sure that I was in fact awake and this was really happening.

After a long day of travelling, we were there! Checked in our little pod which would be home for the next few nights. Walking through the streets of New York to one of the many YMCA buildings they have providing affordable use of gyms, was just incredible. I am a short being but I felt so tiny walking in between buildings that had floor after floor! YMCA's Westside Building was equally as incredible. For a city with such modern construct to have this little gem of history was amazing.

Tuesday morning, the UN visit has arrived. And it was as incredible as I had imagined. The weather was questionable with snow and high winds, but that made for a wonderful backdrop to the views around the grounds of the UN. I had the great privilege to sit amongst the delegates from across the world, one of the best seats in the house. This just added to the experience.

It was great to hear in the opening section of the United Nations ECOSOC Youth Forum how the youth voice had a great role to play and that young people are the ‘innovators’, that we should allow all young people to ‘make noise’ at all times by removing those gatekeepers that they often come across.

Round table speakers gave me a great insight into what was achieved from so many across the world in various ways from fighting radical elements from the United Arab Emirates to educating young people in agricultural colleges providing them with a computer each in Cameroon.

To be perfectly honest, my knowledge of the ECOSOC Youth Forum was limited but this whole experience has opened my eyes to the vast knowledge and experience that could be utilised from various countries and that we should in fact share information rather than boast about ‘what we are doing’. It was an opportunity to raise concerns about different areas of work but to also provide advice on how to engage with young people who may be hardest to reach. 

This was evident in the breakout session I attended on the first day. I was able to meet and chat with various individuals about using science, technology and innovation to build engagement, to develop skills in this area but also most importantly build resilience and to help those that may have faced tragedy of some sort. As part of the group speaking mainly about resilience we spoke about the importance of having concrete foundations in place to then assist young people further with their development and how science and technology could assist with this. Conversations were based on improving ICT skills with young people and wider access to internet especially when a crisis had occurred.

We then had to report back our discussion to the rest of the breakout group. Without even thinking about it I placed my hand in the air to volunteer myself as tribute (Hunger Games reference for you there). So I had just said that I would speak in front of many on the main points we had made for future work- yeah I do not know why either. But I did it! I got up and spoke about our three main points to consider:

1. Building Science, Technology and Innovation infrastructure and improving literacy through local needs assessments as each country is different and requires different areas of technology.
2. Training of trainers to encourage community based interventions to identify specific skills and interests such as volunteer innovation hubs
3. Building data from all avenues in both public and private partnerships but from also those in the community to leverage big data. Also to ensure that the need of this data and the results are communicated those it would have a large effect on.

So I did it. I spoke at the United Nations, representing World YMCA! To say my mum was proud is an understatement.

Wednesday, Day two. This was as good as the first. Learning so much more than I could ever do by reading through information. I was able to get a real feel for what delegates wanted to express from their countries and organisations.

The breakout session around what is happening in Europe, North America and other states was as equally as interesting as the breakout session the day previously. We spoke about the European Youth Forum and shared vast knowledge of various government policies and how to engage young people further in the importance of their government and policies.

Having YMCA at the United Nations for the ECOSOC Youth Forum was really valuable. Many of the comments on how to engage young people and how to build and develop their resilience was something we were already aware of across the different YMCAs in attendance, or we were already working on this. We were then able to share across the delegates our own insight to this and often some of our suggestions had not even been thought of prior to the youth forum. We were able to give a youth voice at a global youth event which was invaluable.

This whole experience has opened my eyes to a larger picture and the importance of ALL YMCAs in the development of our young people as rightly said by one of the delegates ‘young people bring solutions rather than complaints’.

USA Discovery Visit Day 6

After a weekend of exploring Boston (depending on whose activity tracker you believe this ranged from 44,000 to 60,000 steps) we picked up our Discovery Visit schedule this morning with a visit to the Parkway YMCA.

On arrival the reception area brought the annual campaign to life with a large Christmas tree and wall of stars representing pledges made by members and businesses in the local community.  Philanthropy has been a key discovery throughout our visit as we have learnt about the culture of donating to the Y ranging from Board members (both local and association boards) through to staff and members.

Photo of annual appeal stars representing donations.

Parkway Y was redeveloped in the last 2 years and the quality of the facilities are outstanding, we toured the aquatics area, fitness centre, gymnasium (and even had a tour of the boiler room!) before meeting in the community room to talk with staff about fundraising and their childhood development programmes. 

From Parkway YMCA our next stop was Thanksgiving lunch hosted by Executive Director Billy Alves and his leadership team at Menino YMCA.  We were met with warmth and enthusiasm by Billy and his leadership Team and it was a pleasure to be invited to share lunch with them.

Photo with the leadership team from Menino Y

Throughout our visit we have been fortunate to hear the stories of some of the people involved in the Y and over lunch I met Lyle Jackson, Teen and Youth Sports Development Director.  Lyle shared his story with the Y which began at Springfield College where he found he was struggling with college and sought help. Lyle was pointed in the direction of Harry Rock and Erin Friedman who quickly realised his potential and got him involved in the wider YMCA Movement including a visit to London to see the work of some of the English YMCA’s.  Following his graduation from Springfield College Lyle then chose a career with the YMCA!

We had the pleasure of meeting Erin Friedman, Associate Director of Springfield College on Thursday and in the spirt of Thanksgiving I would like to share with you a Mission Moment Erin delivered at the Massachusettes YMCA Alliance meeting we attended.

As Thanksgiving nears, I come to you with a simple message about gratitude.

In a community where people feel isolated, disconnected and are longing to belong, we have a place called the Y. Steadfast and stable - a place to ‘be’ and ‘become’.

In a community where children may fail to reach their full potential due to lack of resources, we have a place called the Y.  Determined and driven - a place that nurtures the goodness in every child - socially, emotionally, cognitively and physically.

In a community where the health and wellness of children and adults alike has been significantly compromised, we have a place called the Y.  Collaborating and conscientious - a place that renews and rejuvenates healthy lifestyles.

In a community where our social and political views divide us, we have a place called the Y.  Unifying and unique - a place that builds bridges and professes to be the place for all.

In a community where new Americans arrive daily, we have a place called the Y.  Warm and welcoming - a place that helps some of out brightest yet most vulnerable settle in.  Let us be grateful.

In a WORLD challenged by conflicting ideals, torn apart by wars, lacking access to education, healthcare and recreation, we have places called the Y.  Powerful and purposeful - that serve as beacons of hope, love and peace throughout 119 countries around the world.

Let us be grateful for our global YMCA Movement.  The vision and legacy of George Williams.  Thank you for your service to this great movement.  Thank you for your continued servant leadership.  Your willingness and courage to stand for what is right.  Thank you for reinforcing that the Y is the place for all.   Thank you for modelling the way.  The Y way.

Thank you to all of our YMCA Colleagues who have welcomed us to your Y’s and shared with us your knowledge, experience, challenges and celebrations throughout our visit.  It has been a pleasure to meet and get to know each and everyone one of you.

We now have a short break in todays programme to pack in advance of our departure for the UK tomorrow evening, before dinner this evening with the Director of Healthy Living, Bobby Kleinau.