YMCA Ghana Constitutional Amendment Committee meeting with Greater Accra Regional YMCA

By Sarah Heinlin

YMCA Ghana is in the process of aligning its constitution to the constitutions of other YMCAs and the one of the African Alliance of YMCA in terms of the leadership positions and on the new Membership Charter. In the past, every Region and at the National level, the Ghana YMCA had a President and a Chairman beside the Vice Chairman, Treasurer and the Youth President. With that process of alignment, the Ghana YMCA is to adjust its constitution to the YMCAs of the World Alliance. At the same time the constitution will adapt and update some of the core issues in the to address the needs of the members as well as current trends on youth issues.

To do so, there has been a Constitutional Review Committee set in place, that will meet the various Regions and all other stakeholders to discuss the details of the new agenda. The new constitution has to be developed by August for final validation at the National Youth Conference and adoption at the National Council Meeting in September 2018. Thus, every member can participate in the process and can bring his/her ideas, wishes and suggestion in the discussion.

The main focus in the alignment process will be to abolish the ceremonial function of the president, at the Branch, Regional and National levels. Thereby the Chairman will take over the duties of the President. However, the new functions of merging the role of the Chairman and the President will only be known as the President. This will be replicated at all the levels of YMCA Ghana.

On Saturday the 5^th of May 2018 Greater Accra Regional members of the YMCA were invited to critically contribute in the process of reviewing the constitution. The Chairman of the Review Committee took the members through the various areas which will require inputs. He also solicited their inputs based on already prepared questionnaires by the Committee which all participants were required to fill with their inputs for changes and he wanted to find out, for what the YMCA has to look for in the future. All those amendments and concerns should be written down in the constitution. Around 30 members took part and were asked to fill in the questionnaire.

The questions to the audience were, if there are any areas the Committee hasn’t considered so far and what? And at the same time the Committee wanted to receive a feedback on the areas that are already described.

In the subsequent weeks the Committee is moving to the other regions up to 2^nd of June when the Regional interactions would come to an end. In that time all members are invited to send their questionnaire back to YMCA National Office. Next dates are in the Ashanti Region on the coming weekend,12^th May 2018, followed by the Eastern Region on 19^th May 2018The meeting in the Western Region will take place on the 26^th May 2018 and last but not least there will be the meeting in the Volta Region on the 2^nd June 2018.