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To enhance the message previously put forth by the participants of the 2010 International Youth Forum, echoed by the World Council body at large, and reinforced by various Resource and Keynote speakers, we wish to secure a place for the youth voice in the decision-making processes of the World Council.
Recommendation:
We ask for a formal reassessment of the election and voting procedure of the World Council, as provided by the Constitution of the World Alliance, for the purpose of ensuring youth representation, that each National Movement with more than one voting delegate to allot a youth voting delegate (person aged 30 and under) among its voting delegates.
The following national movements offer their official support to this recommendation: Africa Alliance, APAY Youth Delegates, APAY Youth Council , APAY General Secretary, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa rica, YWCA/YMCA of Denmark, England, Germany, Latina American and Caribbean alliance, Macedonia, Mexico, National Council of Japan, New Zealand, National YMCA of the Philippines, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, YWCA/YMCA of Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, YWCA/YMCA Switzerland, Zambia, Zimbabwe
YMCA England
This 17th meeting of the World Council of YMCAs, meeting in Hong Kong from 19th to 24th July 2010, resolves as follows:
Noting that the Olympic and Paralympics Games of 2012 are to be held in London, the founding city of the World YMCA movement,
and recalling that the game of basketball, now played in communities world-wide and as an elite and Olympic sport, originated in the YMCA of Springfield, Massachusetts, USA,
this meeting warmly welcomes the proposal of the English YMCA that, on the day of the basketball final at the 2012 Olympics, a world-wide YMCA-based record attempt should take place, to establish a Guinness World Record for the greatest number of participants in a single basketball hoop shooting event,
accordingly endorses the 'YMCA Hoop Springs Eternal' event to be led and organised by Central YMCA, the movement’s founding association, as an authentic expression of world YMCA identity, unity and common values,
and urges every member of the YMCA movement to commit to and participate fully in this exciting and very public event.’
Motivation
Striving for climate justice is one way to work on global citizenship for all!
In YMCA’s Challenge 21there is stated “Defending Gods creation against all that would destroy it and preserving and protecting the earth’s resources for coming generations”. This is a task carried out in different ways among them the more recent advocacy at COP15 for climate justice for all on the issue of climate change.
Basis
In the position paper to COP15 the World Alliance of YMCAs stated “the social and economic impact of global warming has increased poverty, threatened food security, destroyed the livelihood of millions of people, created environmental refugees, increased migration flows and further increased the vulnerability of women, children and young people” this is also true for the rest of the human population and the global ecosystems. Affecting everyone but mostly the already poorest communities on our world.
The focus at the Youth Forum was on the MDGs. The outline of the discussion was that, ensuring environmental stability is a prioritized issue in the next coming years. It was also recognized that climate change and other MDGs are closely inter- linked making living conditions in parts of the world more difficult than before. The possible positive impacts of climate change will be hugely outnumbered by the negative impacts for humans, ecosystems, politics and economy.
YMCA is a worldwide movement based on youth aiming at creating leaders for the future. YMCAs around the world has for the last decades been working on environmental issues e.g. climate change both locally, nationally and regionally.
We call upon the World Alliance of YMCAs to:
Further strengthen the platform of Advocacy issues related to Climate Change and making sure that youth from all over the world is given possibilities to be active on different levels. This especially concerns youth affected by climate change already today.
We call upon national YMCAs to:
In different ways start and/or continue to act and advocate for climate justice focusing on youth and assuring youth involvement in this process.
YWCA-YMCA Sweden
With support from YMCA Belarus, YMCA-YWCA Denmark, YMCA New Zealand.
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Development in transport and communication has increased mobility of the people. It resulted in the emergence of increased number of travellers from developed countries to the developing countries. Even though tourism could contribute to the development process of the receiving country, in reality the benefits of the tourism are not reaching to the local communities rather they become victims of different forms of exploitations.
In many countries in Asia, tourism is a story of the displacement of farmers, fisher communities, indigenous people and other communities to make way for the arrival of a tourism enterprise from abroad and within the country in the form of a five star resort or hotel, a golf course, or a new amusement park. It is the story of diversion of essential resources such as land, water, and other resources from the local communities to tourism enterprises. It is the story of ecological damage that leaves the local communities the worse off for it. Modern day tourism is the story of abused hospitality, of people misled by unscrupulous interests that are profits driven with a disregard for the social consequences on Third World communities including women, girls and boys forced into prostitution on account of their poverty. However we are also convinced that if properly formulated by addressing the negative impacts, tourism can be of immense benefit to host communities and bring global solidarity of people for addressing global challenges.
In this context, together with the Asia and Pacific Alliance of YMCAs who is currently engaged in promoting Alternative Tourism in Asia and Pacific , the following member movements of the World Alliance of YMCAs propose the following resolution :
“The 17th General Assembly of the World Alliance of YMCAs calls all the YMCAs across world to study the negative impact of the tourism in communities by seeing tourism in the perspectives of ‘host community’ and appropriately consider community based Alternative Tourism Initiatives for bringing changes. It also calls to consider the establishment of a Task Group on Alternative Tourism at World Alliance of YMCAs to study impact and consider acting on the agenda of promoting Alternative Tourism through the YMCA Movements and study the negative impact of Tourism around the world as a Global Citizenship Action”
Proposed by:
Alliance of YMCAs of Thailand , National Council of YMCAs of Philippines , National Council of YMCAs of Myanmar , National Council of YMCAs of New Zealand , National Council of YMCAs of India , National Council of YMCAs of Japan , National Council of YMCAs of Korea , National Council of YMCAs of Bangladesh , YMCA Australia
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