The president of Mumbai YWCA Gulobi Fernandes said, 'Our name in India remains intact. Not just India, the world YWCA has not changed its name. It is only the UK group that has been renamed.'
The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) charity in United Kingdom has changed its name to remove the reference to religion in its title. But the Indian counterpart of the worldwide charity said they had no such plans.
The president of Mumbai YWCA Gulobi Fernandes said, “Our name in India remains intact. Not just India, the world YWCA has not changed its name. It is only the UK group that has been renamed.”
The UK unit’s decision to change its name will be a subject of debate at the organisation’s next world council meet scheduled in July 2011.
In UK, the organisation will now be known as Platform 51 — the ‘51’ will represent the general proportion of women in the total population. A year ago, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) changed its named to just ‘Y’ dropping all the other letters.
The YWCA England and Wales said that since its founding, the organisation has evolved to reflect the changes in society and the needs and expectations of women. A spokes-person from the charity has been quoted by news agencies as saying that the old name “no longer stands for who they are”.
“This is true of the work we do and also of our name. Our old one no longer stood for who we are or what we do and people often confused us with another charity,” they stated.
The group was founded in France around 156 years ago and spread all over the world. In India, it set up its office first in Mumbai in1875. There are now 85 units spread across various Indian cities. Apart from hostels for working women and reasonably priced lodgings for tourists, the group runs vocational training institutes and programmes for the poor.
Units based in different countries are affiliated to the YWCA world council in Geneva. However, the Geneva office has said that none of the branches in other countries are changing their names.
In India, the news has been met with surprise. Members felt the idea of Christian charity was an essential constituent of the group’s identity. Lawrence Rebello, a manager at the YWCA hostel in Colaba said, “It is a trust with offices all over the world. A trust like YWCA cannot change its name just like that.”
Rema Daniel, president of the national board of YWCA India in Delhi said, “In England, they feel that if you have the word ‘Christian’ in the name, you are like any other charity group.”
Fernandes said that YMCA in UK dropped three of the four letters in its name and renamed itself ‘Y’, its counterpart in India had decided to stick to their old name.
The YWCA is holding its once-in-four-years world council meeting in Zurich in July. “We will discuss the UK unit’s decision to change its name,” said Daniel.
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