th Anniversary edition THE MAGAZINE OF Y CARE INTERNATIONAL ISSUE FIVE OCTOBER 2009 THE MAGAZINE OF Y CARE INTERNATIONAL ISSUE FIVE OCTOBER 2009 CONTENTS Contributors: Gemma Abbs (Editor), FOREWORD BY TERRY WAITE 03 Clive Bailey, David Bedford, Eva Cohn, Jessica Hardaway, Harriet Knox, 25 YEAR TIMELINE 04-06 Mickella Lewis, Dylan Mathews, Chris Roles, Lola Ukandu, Terry Waite, LOOKING FORWARD, 07 Sophie Willimington, Zoë Wilson-Young CHRIS ROLES, CHIEF EXECUTIVE Design: Ian Dunn Design Print: West One Studios AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID BEDFORD 07-08 A SUPPORTERS STORY: EVA COHN 08 Y Care International Kemp House 25 YEARS OF SUPPORT FROM 09 152-160 City Road THE AUSTIN BAILEY FOUNDATION London EC1V 2NP United Kingdom IN HER OWN WORDS: 09 Tel. 020 7549 3175 AN INTERVIEW WITH LOLA UKANDU [email protected] www.ycareinternational.org HEALING THE SCARS OF CONFLICT 10-11 Please note that for the purposes of confidentiality, GRADUATION DAY 12-13 some names appearing in this magazine have TUNING INTO PEACE 14-15 been changed. Cover picture: Nine-year-old Josephine is from Casamance in Senegal, which has experienced 27 years of This publication is printed on material sourced conflict. Her family left her village for neighbouring Guinea-Bissau at the height of the conflict, only returning from sustainably managed forests. when Josephine’s father heard that Y Care International were working to rebuild his village and had constructed a school. Soon after they returned, Josephine’s mother died after contracting malaria. Now Josephine is doing her best to help protect other families from malaria by becoming one of our specially trained Peace and Health Ambassadors. Credit: Sophie Willmington Y Care International is the international relief and development agency of the YMCA in the UK and Ireland. We work in partnership with YMCAs in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean to empower young people and their communities to find alternatives to a future of poverty and disadvantage, and to build lives and communities marked by hope and positive change. 2 INSIGHT THE MAGAZINE OF Y CARE INTERNATIONAL Care International has been part of my life for the past We also believe in the right to live in peace and security – which 25 years, ever since two employees of YMCA England leads us to support post-conflict programmes and community approached me with a novel idea. The international building. We can see this in Liberia, where the bitter civil war not Y YMCA movement (the oldest international voluntary only crippled the country’s infrastructure – its young people organisation in the world) was, they said, a truly massive emerged destitute, internally displaced and traumatised by war. organisation, that had been carrying out life-changing youth We supported the YMCA of Liberia to help young people cope with work with young men and women in many of the poorest the trauma of war and rebuild their lives. You will read more in countries in the world for 150 years. this magazine about how we are continuing to build on this work. Y Care International is launched Y Care International’s belief in the right of young people to participate actively in the life of their community leads us to They asked me to join them in launching a new charity that would support youth citizenship and youth justice programmes. For channel the resources of the YMCA to enable disadvantaged young example, since 2001, we have been supporting work with former people in the developing world to have a better quality of life. young offenders and those at risk of offending in South Africa. Our Youth Justice in Action campaign has also enabled us to Today, Y Care International is as vibrant and purposeful as ever. advocate for fairer youth justice systems around the world. Our goals remain much the same as they were then: to change the lives of disadvantaged young people for the better. And our belief in young people’s right to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families leads to our support of life skills Y Care International still works through locally-based YMCAs and livelihood development programmes. Our YMCA partners across the developing world, funding and supporting a broad give young people the right balance of the education, skills and range of projects. All our work is centred on our core belief that confidence they need to find employment and build a better future. every young person has particular rights. All of this has only been possible with your support. Young people’s rights A special journey The right to healthy physical development for example, In my role as President, I have been lucky enough to witness which leads us to support health promotion and HIV/AIDS Y Care International’s work in action and meet many resilient programmes. Y Care International has been instrumental in young people and many dedicated YMCA staff and volunteers setting up an HIV/AIDS network across India, where over two around the world. million people are living with HIV/AIDS. Our YMCA partners around the world are working to increase awareness of HIV In February 2004, I made a special journey. I visited the Middle among those groups who are most vulnerable to infection. East for the first time since my release from captivity in Beirut 13 years earlier. I was there to mark Y Care International’s 20th We believe young people have the right to protection from the anniversary by visiting its work with young people in Lebanon impact of natural and human-made disasters and emergencies. and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. At a vocational training This leads us to support the emergency relief and rehabilitation centre in Jericho, I was able to see for myself some of this work in programmes which Building Societies, Y Care supporters and action, giving young people, particularly young women, vocational the public have been so supportive of over the years. This was training in areas like computing and mechanics – skills that are so particularly evident when we raised a staggering £4.7 million, desperately needed if they are to escape poverty and earn their which enabled us to respond immediately to the devastating own living in the future. Tsunami in India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, where we continue to support communities. In many ways, Y Care International is an organisation which is proud to be different. The most obvious thing that sets us apart from other organisations is the fact that our work focuses on young people. Around one in five of the world’s population is aged between 15 and 24. Disadvantaged young people in developing countries are often marginalised from society and their needs and rights are too often neglected, The vision of YMCAs around the “I SINCERELY HOPE THAT Y CARE world is to ensure that the needs of young people are not INTERNATIONAL WILL CONTINUE TO overlooked by society. PROSPER OVER THE NEXT 25 YEARS At Y Care, we know that when given the chance, young people can AND BRING HOPE TO MANY MORE transform their own lives and those of others. We also believe that YOUNG PEOPLE.” young people’s voices must be heard, so we encourage those we support to take an active part in bringing about change – not just in their community, but in the wider world too. In addition, we do not run overseas offices or employ expatriate staff. Instead, we know that our YMCA partners, as local, autonomous organisations, are close to the communities they are part of and know the best ways to help. It has been a privilege to have been exposed to the strength and commitment of these organisations over the past 25 years. It is your support which has made all this possible. I sincerely hope that Y Care International FOREWORD BY will continue to prosper over the next 25 years and bring hope to many more young people. G TERRY WAITE CBE PRESIDENT INSIGHT THE MAGAZINE OF Y CARE INTERNATIONAL 3 The history of Y Care international – 25 year timeline 1983 1984 1985 1983 1984 1985 David Bedford, Director of Terry Waite accepts an invitation to help launch Y Care International SPRING Public Affairs at YMCA and becomes Founding Chairman. Terry Waite brings together England, proposes the creation the leading Building Societies of an agency which would Y Care International (YCI) is officially launched with an inaugural to collect money for YCI in support the grassroots relief appeal – for one million ten pences. Messages of support are future emergency situations; and development work of received from the leaders of all four main political parties. a scheme which would raise YMCA organisations all over The appeal raises £40,000 within the first two months. millions of pounds for victims the developing world. of natural and man-made YCI’s first grants to YMCA emergency programmes are made disasters over the next 25 years. DECEMBER for child victims of the war in Lebanon; to help victims of the Terry Waite, accompanying the drought in Mozambique; to support a house building programme YCI’s first full-time staff Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr for those caught in sectarian violence in Sri Lanka; and for member is appointed as Head Robert Runcie, meets YMCA Nigerian refugees in Ghana. of Development Education leaders in Shanghai who are to challenge young people planning new YMCA work Grants to support long term development programmes are in YMCAs around the UK following the end of the also made to YMCAs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, to become engaged in Cultural Revolution. This The Gambia, Costa Rica and Ghana, for vocational training, global issues.