2023-2024 Impact Report

President’s Report

This year our local Y Canberra Region organisation celebrated the 180th anniversary of ‘The Y’. The YMCA’s incredible journey commenced on the 6 June 1844, since then, the YMCA movement has grown to deliver social impact in 120 countries around the world. For the first time, this global network of Y associations, are guided by a united Strategy 2030.

The Y Strategy 2030 goal is to “build a better world, with and for young people” and is underpinned by four strategic pillars that young people care about; community wellbeing, a just world, meaningful work, and a sustainable planet.

The Y Canberra Region team has been working hard in the past year to realign our Y assets and services to Strategy 2030 and make supporting children and young people our primary focus.

In 2024, the Y Canberra Region also proudly endorsed a three-year Brand and Youth Voice Roadmap to amplify children and young people’s voices across our region. Our Y team have engaged with children’s voices through many celebrations and activities, including co-designing child-friendly procedures and hosting interactive safeguarding sessions.

Hundreds of thousands of school students come to Canberra each year as part of their civic education and many of these student groups stay at our Y Bush Capital Lodge, or Y Leumeah Lodge. The Y Canberra Region team was proud to host the Y’s National Youth Cabinet at our Leumeah Lodge this year, accommodating 12 young people who met with Federal MPs at Australian Parliament House on key topics, including housing and education.

Our Y Children’s Services team operates five Early Learning Centres (ELCs) and 11 Outside Hours School Care Programs across NSW and ACT. This year the Y partnered with the ACT Government in delivering the new Three-Year-Old Universal Access Preschool Program, the first step toward free pre-school for Canberra families. The innovation of our Children Services team to ensure Canberra region children have the best start in life, can be demonstrated by such interactive programs as Bush Kinder program, and sustainable gardens. The Y team continue to support some of Canberra’s most vulnerable families and children, providing emergency care places across all our five Y ELCs.

As I reflect on my last term as a Director on the Y Canberra Region Board and look to the future, it is also very important to acknowledge our rich heritage and those that helped us get where we are today.

The Y Canberra Region team would like to especially acknowledge the sad passing this year of two of our most important and beloved supporters, former CEO and Life Member, Len Goodman AO (1932 – 2024), and Life Member Beverley Doering (1942 – 2024).

Len was a man of vision and a person embedded in his local community, with a deep passion for empowering young people. Len’s words are enduring, with the Y having “an opportunity to draw out what young people don’t know they’ve got sometimes. You encourage, so they can see that there is so much more to life” Beverley was a life long contributor through community work and was a founding member of the Y Canberra’s Auxiliary. Beverley was part of the volunteer team that raised thousands of dollars for the disadvantaged members of our community, including our RAID basketball program.

Thank you to both Len and Beverley for your selfless contributions to our community, and our young people.

CEO Report

The Y’s Strategy 2030 is bold and purposeful, it spells out what young people care about, and, importantly, that they want a say in shaping their lives and the communities they live in.

My goals as CEO until 2030, are two-fold. Firstly, to ensure ‘The Y’ vision and mission of supporting children and young people is our primary focus. Secondly, to ensure we have a sustainable, contemporary organisation, and ‘beneficiary-focused’ culture to deliver on that promise.

The Y Canberra Region organisation operates across the ACT and NSW adjacent region, on the lands of the Ngunnawal, Ngambri and Ngarigu peoples. The Y team, is very committed to the ongoing implementation of its first inaugural Reconciliation Action Plan and was proud to publicly support the majority of young Australians and the ACT community wishes in supporting constitutional recognition of First Nation’s peoples in the recent referendum. 

The geographic reach and social impact of Y services across Canberra and NSW is substantial and meaningful. Our Y Canberra Region team directly affect and support the lives of over 20,000+ children and young people, which include working closely with their families, teachers, and community of supporters each year. Our Y team support children and young people across life’s most important transitions, and enable life-changing experiences.

These important milestones include leaving the direct care of their parents for the first time, getting ready for school, making new friends and learning new sports, travelling away from home on a school trip, or volunteering/undertaking paid work in that first job. 

Not only is our external focus on children and young people, our Y Canberra Region team has one of the youngest workforces in our sector, with over 50% of our staff being under the age of 30 years. Many paid and volunteer roles at the Y are either very early career, or first-time jobs. The Y National team played an important advocacy role in supporting the Commonwealth’s commitment to increase the wages of our early year’s educators and our Canberra Region team is committed to paying our young workforce above award.

In realigning our business to focus on children and young people and ensure organisational sustainability, this year we made the difficult decision to close the Karabar Get-up-and-Go program and Chifley Gym and Wellbeing Centre, both intergenerational fitness services. I would like to thank all Y members and community that supported this service over many years and for the grace and dignity that our Y staff displayed in the closure of this intergenerational wellbeing service.

Finally, I would like to highlight my favourite day of the past year, that is, celebrating the first inaugural World Basketball Day event in late December 2023 with our RAID Basketball athletes and their families and carers, our amazing partners at Radford College, our Y volunteers and staff, representatives from our Y management team, and the amazing NBL legend Cal Bruton, from the Bruton Basketball Foundation. While every day is a privilege to serve the Y mission, a community event like World Basketball Day reminds us why we all work at The Y.

A big thank you to all our members, staff, and partners, for supporting the important life events and milestones of children and young people across our Region.