This is a 'Guest' post from the President of the Worlds Alliance of YMCA, Mr Peter Posner MBE who is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Derbyshire YMCA in England.
This morning I have a meeting with Cardinal Mario Poli,
Archbishop of Buenos Aires who is the head of the Roman Catholic Church in
Argentina. Followed by a meeting with
Argentinean Finance Minister Alfonso Prat Gay (the equivalent of George Osborne
in the UK). We then go to the down town YMCA
for lunch with local young business and church leaders, followed by a meeting
with the Mayor of Buenos Aires Horacio Rodriguez Larreta. Tonight I meet more YMCA volunteers then
dinner with the National Secretary and Chair. Even in my unusual world as
President of the World YMCA, this is going to be quite a day.
I have just spent a week in Brazil, visiting YMCAs in four
cities of which the largest was Sao Paolo.
There they have 12 YMCA branches offering mostly sport and mainstream
schooling, plus 20 “social development” branches working in poorer areas. This
latter part interested me most. Children
going to public (i.e. free) school go either in the morning or afternoon and
the YMCA offers pre or after school programmes.
These are all very good and provide a wide range of informal education, including
performing arts. I found myself helping
out in a kind of native martial art dance accompanied by music on indigenous
instruments. Most interesting was an
award winning programme based on circus skills and they even have a genuine big
top for their training.
Here we are being presented with a gift at an after school
club in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
And this is a brand new second swimming pool about to be
opened in Sorocaba, 100km from Sao Paolo.
It is also the YMCA where the Brazilian YMCA runs its own Executive
Secretary training college.
I
am now in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The YMCA here was formed almost 115 years
ago. They have a very well developed
sports and social programme offering, plus schools for
