HISTORY OF CAMEROON-YMCA
The Young Men’s Christian Association / Union Chrétienne de Jeunes Gens (UCJG/YMCA) is a worldwide, Christian, ecumenical, lay and voluntary movement, open to women and men, but especially to young people who seek to share the Christian ideal of building a human community of justice, love, peace and reconciliation for the fullness of life for all creation.
The YMCA/YMCA arrived in Cameroon in the 1920s and the very first group was affiliated with the Alliance Française des UCJG in 1924. It was only in 1951 that a National Alliance was created in Cameroon, called the “Alliance of Young People’s Christian Unions of Cameroon”. She was later co-founder of the African YMCA/YMCA YMCA Alliance in 1977.
Today Cameroon-YMCA is present in all 10 regions of the country and consists of 9 branches and 70 local unions with more than 1,600 regularly registered members and more than 10,000 supporters.
Cameroon-YMCA adheres to the common Vision and Mission of the YMCA/YMCAs consecrated in the BASE DE PARIS, adopted in August 1855, which states that: “The purpose of the Young People’s Christian Unions is to unite young people who, accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, according to the Holy Scriptures, want to be his disciples in their faith and in their lives and work together to extend among the young, the kingdom of their Master. No divergence of opinion, however serious it may be, but relating to a subject foreign to the previously established purpose, shall disturb harmony in fraternal relations between the member movements of the Universal Alliance.
It also adheres to all other subsequent texts of the Global Alliance and the African Alliance, including the 1998 Challenge 21 and the 2007 Accra Declaration.