About Y.W.C.A

The story of the Y.W.C.A is the story of every woman.  She may be attending school or working in an office.  She may have responsibilities of a household and family or a career; she may come from a village or a city; she may live in a large house or a humble dwelling; she may be from Africa, Australia, Europe or Asia; she may have lived all her life in Malaya now Malaysia.  Whoever she may be or wherever she may have been born, whatever her religion, ethnicity or economic background, her story is the story of the Y.W.C.A

No simple definition of the Y.W.C.A is possible.  One must know its characteristics, those things which are at the heart of its life and work.  It is a world-wide Christian fellowship which draws together women and girls from all races, religions, economic, social and cultural backgrounds, and is concerned with all that affects their welfare.

What kind of an Association is the Y.W.C.A?

First it is an organization founded by Christian women for women and girls from the age of 12 years onwards sharing and working together irrespective of race and creed, with people of all faiths and none….It is founded on the basis of Christian values and its avowed purpose is to declare its message through all its activities.  It is a Membership organization, for each and every one of the members is responsible for the Y.W.C.A.  – What it does and may become.  The members co-operate and share responsibilities of different backgrounds, thus making the YWCA a democratic organization.

The YWCA is an Inter-denominational Movement and includes women and girls from all sections.  In its membership, it has been from the beginning trying to meet the needs of its members of different races and religions through various kinds of service – Hostels, Clubs, classes, activities. One of the most distinctive elements has been and continues to be is prayer, service, faith and action.

What is the Symbol of the YWCA?

The Blue Triangle is a symbol of welcome into the fellowship of the YWCA, and represents the spiritual, mental and recreational needs of its members of all ages, which the YWCA tries to meet through its various activities and programme

THE HISTORY OF THE YWCA’S BLUE TRIANGLE BADGE

In the beginning, a little bit of red ribbon with the letters Y.W.C.A. woven on it was the first badge intended to be worn on the lapel by members of the Y.W.C.A., with the hope that wearers would thus recognize other Y.W.C.A. members in railway carriages, at meetings, and elsewhere.  The first real badge, however, was the little diamond-shaped Total Abstinence badge, planned by the newly formed Total Abstinence Department in 1879. Dark blue in colour, it had a gold-coloured edge and had on it, in gold letters, the text of the general motto By Love Serve One Another (Galatians, Chapter 5, verse 13).

The World’s YWCA badge approved at the First World’s YWCA Conference in 1898 was quite different, consisting of two joined circles, representing two hemispheres with the continents on them in red against a gold background, one with the continents of North and South America, and the other with the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe and Australasia.  Round the edge of each hemisphere in gold lettering on a black background was the original Hebrew text of the Prayer Union motto, which is still the motto of the World YWCA today: Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts (Zechariah, Chapter 4, verse 6).  

The blue triangle badge came into use in 1915, during the First World War, contrasting with the Y.M.C.A. red triangle it had adopted as its badge during the war.  Subsequently both the red and the blue triangles came to be well known throughout Great Britain and France as a result of the valuable war work the two organisations carried out all over Great Britain and in France and also by the Americans when they came into the war in 1917.

In the case of the Y.W.C.A., when the First World War broke out in August 1914 there were hundreds of girls of foreign nationality (Swiss, Austrian, German, Belgian, etc.) who found themselves stranded in Gt. Britain and at the same time many British girls who had been on the European continent and were trying to get home via London or looking for help and advice and in many cases, employment.  Initially the YWCA took the girls into their hostels but there were too many and another solution had to be found.  Starting with a club building in Charing Cross in London, subsequently named the Blue Triangle Hut, soon followed by the opening of two more Huts in London and then many more all over the British Isles (including Scotland, Wales and Ireland) the YWCA provided the Blue Triangle Huts as a safe place for to meet. They offered "wholesome recreation", a place to talk, a canteen, a quiet room where people could gather in prayer and, for the soldiers, a place where they felt encouraged and strengthened to face the dangers of the battlefield. The Blue Triangle was a symbol of these many so-called Patriotic Clubs in view of what was recognised as their contribution to the war effort. In the Spring of 1915 a new and urgent demand arose for the immediate housing, feeding and recreation of girls working in munition factories. Girls came from all over the country, usually by train, and usually arriving late at night or in the early hours of the morning. Many of the YWCA Huts provided a place for the girls to rest before the lorries came to fetch them and take them to the factories where they would be working.

During the winter of 1916-1917 the YWCA was approached by the British Government War Office to give advice in its programme of recruiting and transporting to France of around ten thousand women to replace the men working along the lines of communication. The women, who were members of the Q.M.A.A.C., (the Queen Mary's Auxiliary Army Corps), soon learnt to look for the Blue Triangle as a symbol of friendship and hospitality, and the Clubs and Recreation Huts which the organisation opened for the girls in their leisure hours were greatly appreciated by them and their men friends in the isolated army camps and big base towns along the communication lines.

Some 43 such huts were started in France, in addition to more than twice that number in the British Isles and the Blue Triangle huts offered a comforting place to go, with comfortable cushioned chairs, well filled bookshelves, writing tables where they could write home, have a cup of tea and find company and sometimes pray or join in Bible reading. As time went by YWCA Blue Triangle huts sprang up in most of the great naval and military centres in the British Isles, as well as in France. The Blue Triangle Club Huts were also used by military nurses, and at the request of the military authorities, were also later established in Bombay, Basra and Baghdad.

Following the First World War, club life became an important part of the YWCA in Gt. Britain, and there was full recognition of the fact that in the Club the YWCA could best express to the girls involved the great ideals for which the organisation stood.  At the same time, and in the years that followed, Blue Triangle clubs became a feature of YWCAs all over the world. 

   In 1920 the first World’s YWCA conference following the war, in Champéry, Switzerland, was the setting for the official recognition by the World movement of the blue triangle as the badge of the World’s Y.W.C.A.  Not only was it seen to be simpler and more easily recognised than the more cumbersome badge with the two hemispheres and the Hebrew motto round the edge, but the symbolic presentation of the blue triangle, representing the aim of the Y.W.C.A. to develop girls on the three sides of their nature - body, mind and spirit - and enclosed in a circle represen-ting the world as the sphere of Y.W.C.A. work, was considered more meaningful, and it has remained the badge of the World Y.W.C.A. to this day.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *                                                                        

 References

1.   Minutes of the 1898 First World’s YWCA International Meeting;

2.   “Girls of Yesterday and To-day” by Miss Lucy M. Moor, published in 1910

3.   The Women’s International Quarterly, April 1919;
4.   A Study of the World's Young Women's Christian Association, brought out by the   

      World's   YWCA in March 1924, reprinted in 1932;
5.   “Reminiscences” by the Hon. Emily Kinnaird, published in 1925;
6.   “A History of the World’s Young Women’s Christian Association” by Anna V.   

      Rice, published in 1947.