The Young Women’s Christian Association in Anglophone Africa

Abstract

The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), founded in England in 1855, went on to become a worldwide movement by the end of the Victoria era, under the umbrella organization of the World YWCA. As it spread through the British Empire, it responded to a combination of concerns for young white women’s spiritual and physical well-being and provided a venue for middle-class women to act on Christian charity and piety. Owing to the YWCA’s formal and informal links with empire and mission, its histories on different parts of the African continent bear many similarities to one another. For this reason, it would be easy to overlook the diversity of African YWCA forms, activities, and experiences. However, this variety attests to a key feature of YWCA work from its outset: a willingness and ability to adapt to and meet the local context in which it operates. The first YWCA in English-speaking Africa was established in Cape Town in 1886, followed by Lagos (est. 1906), Nairobi (est. 1911), Freetown (est. 1915), and Monrovia (est. 1941). After 1948, the World YWCA officially prioritized building the YWCA movement on the continent. New or renewed associations were established in Ghana (est. 1952), South Africa, Uganda (est. 1955), Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia, est. 1962), Botswana, Tanzania, and Zambia (est. 1963). Until the 1950s, the World YWCA had been almost exclusively a domain in which white women led, and women of color were expected to follow. As states gained flag independence, YWCAs also transferred power into the hands of local women. In 1960, African YWCA work was well established enough to draw representatives together for the first “World YWCA All-Africa Conference” in Harare (then Salisbury). The English-speaking African YWCA movement then comprised independent organizations in eleven former British colonies, which began new programs of “development” work with support from international partners and donors during the United Nations Decade for Women (1975–1985). The World YWCA was an active supporter of the South African YWCA during apartheid, and African YWCA staff and leaders helped shaped the race politics of the movement throughout the latter 20th century. The YWCA’s legacy in Africa is thus more complex and positive than that of many other organizations with colonial origins.