World-Minded Members Of American Y.W.C.A.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31234, 5 December 1966, Page 2

World-Minded Members Of American Y.W.C.A.

American student members of the Y.W.G.A. are becoming world-minded, through the association’s international projects.

Last year a party of American Y girls attended a seminar held in Chile; a team toured through Japan, attended a threeweeks’ work camp in Hokkaido and visited Korea. Another group went on a student exchange to Russia. AM the projects contribute to the aim of the Y.W.C.A.’s programme. They give young people an opportunity to work together, to travel together and to meet the young of other countries; to achieve better understanding between different races and creeds and to advance international good will. In addition, the mutual service programme of the world association maintains continuing contact with .young people in more than 75 countries.

Last year 34 countries were involved in a programme to create a new understanding of the work of women in their respective communities. This was made possible through the International Training Institute, sponsored jointly by the Y.W.C.A. of the U.S.A, and the Y.W.C.A. of Canada. Forty-eight women, including staff members and volunteers who work with students — joined the teen-agers who participated in the five-month programme. They came from, in addition to the United States and Canada, the following countries: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Rhodesia, Uganda, Liberia and Tanzania in Africa: Ceylon, India. Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in Asia: Lebanon in the Middle East: Australia, the Fiji Islands, and New Zealand in Australasia: Finland and Great Britain in Europe, and Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Jamaica, and Mexico in Latin America and the Caribbean. The women met first in a three-week seminar at Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, to study ways in which they could help build better com-

munities, improve the health and welfare of families, and provide wider educational opportunities. The institute ended with a final conference in Banff, Canada, where representatives from the Y.W.C.A. in the United States, Canada and many other countries gathered for the largest training course of its kind to run by the Y.W.C.A. Another exchange is the Living Letters project of the ! Y.W.C.A.’s International Divi- ’ sion. A pilot programme re- ! suited in a large number of : United States Y-teens, the 12 ■ to 17-year-old members of the

Y.W.C.A., recording for their counterparts in various parts of the world a series of discussions, music of their area, and greetings. In the same scheme, young people in other parts of the world put on tape facts about their countries, musical numbers, their hopes for peace as well as other material which they want to share with their friends elsewhere.

Ever since Agnes Hill was sent to India in 1894 in response to an appeal from the Y.W.C.A. of Madras to both the American and British Y.W.C.A.s for “some ladies of experience and devotion” who would develop “a more definite and systematic work among the young women of India,” the Y.W.C.A. of the United States has been sending staff to help strengthen and extend the international organisation’s work. Tn 7O years, the United States Y.W.C.A. has worked with the majority of Y.W.C.A.S in more than 75 countries.

Through financial resources and trained leadership it has been able to contribute to the development of mutual service work abroad during critical periods. But the American participants have gained at least as much in greater understanding and world-mindedness.