Greetings from Area President of Y's Men International Asia Pacific

Last Updated (Monday, 08 January 2024 17:19)

As Y’s Men International Asia Pacific Area President, it is with great pleasure and honor that I greet the members and friends of the Asia and Pacific Alliance of YMCAs.

First, I commend the APAY for its valuable and meaningful work involving young people.

As you know, Y’s Men’s Clubs exist to serve YMCAs and their respective communities. The APAY and the Asia Pacific Area are partners.

Please let me briefly introduce your partner, the Asia Pacific Area, the ASP Area for short. The ASP Area has over 3,600 members in 16 countries, divided into seven (7) Regions, namely Australia, Japan East, Japan West, the Philippines, Southeast Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, and Nepal), Sri Lanka, and Taiwan. It is one of the most diversified and vibrant Areas among eight (8) Areas in the Y’s Men International. The countries the ASP Area covers coincide with your member countries except India and Korea. These two countries form their Area due to large membership.

As Area President, I am responsible for strengthening the Area both in quality and in quantity. To achieve my responsibility, I set my theme for the Area in my term 2023-2024 as “Be the Light for Change.” I chose this theme following the International President’s, “Let the Light Shine.” As IP says, each member is a light or a lighthouse to shine and lead the way for others. The same is true with my theme. I would like the members to be the light that guides us toward our goals and leads others to the goals.

On another note, I would like to introduce two key words in Y’sdom. They are “fellowship” and “service.” Y's Men International, YMI for short, celebrated its 100th Anniversary in Taipei, Taiwan, last March, marking a new step forward into the next 100 years. "Strategy 2032," a blueprint for the next ten years of YMI, was developed as a first step. The direction in which the YMI is headed in this strategy is excellence in fellowship and community impact.

With this direction in mind, we must address YMI’s challenges, such as declining and aging membership. In tackling YMI’s challenges, I see great potential in the partnership and fellowship with the APAY. I want to emphasize that with fellowship, I mean more than developing friendships. But the fellowship, I mean, is an empowering relationship where you can achieve some objectives, or you can reach your goals with the support and assistance from the fellowship. When you apply this idea to the fellowship among YMI members, we can achieve more than each member or club can do.

If you can carry out projects or programs needed in the community, there is no question about the impact you can make on the community.

And if you successfully create empowering fellowship and community impact, we can increase the membership naturally. ASP Area’s larger membership is also a positive influence on APAY.

I sincerely hope that the cooperation and fellowship between APAY and the ASP Area will bring the light for change in the future. As Area President, I am determined to be the light for change to get the Area and APAY to a higher place!

Thank you.