YMCA Youth and Government - Purpose
The purpose of the YMCA Youth & Government Program is to prepare participants for moral and political citizenship in local, state, or national government roles. YMCA Youth and Government provides guidance, training and an experience in the American democratic process of state government. The YMCA Youth & Government Program is based upon the Y’s core values of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility and seeks to accomplish its purpose in the following ways:
- To provide guidance, training and experience in the theory and practice of determining public policy.
- To confirm the principles of democracy and promote moral courage in solving public questions.
- To develop the attitude that through orderly action in the three branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial) people can improve their current situations.
- To reveal the importance of the freedoms set forth in the Bill of Rights and in State and Federal Constitutions.
- To show that an honest difference of opinion, with freedom to express it, is a healthy medium in which to attain personal dignity.
- To indicate that in our society judgments with respect to values and goals will rest with the members of that society.
The YMCA Youth & Government Program is sponsored by the NH/VT State Alliance of YMCAs and believes that only the members of a social order can improve that order. This fact, in turn, suggests that all citizens must be so educated that the process of policy-making becomes one in which emotions and feelings are tempered by reason and by fact.
Overall Goal for Each Delegate
AS A BETTER CITIZEN OF MY COUNTRY, I have an obligation to:
- UNDERSTAND my American heritage of liberty – civil, religious, personal.
- SEARCH for the facts and the truth about all public questions.
- VOTE with intelligence and conscience
- PARTICIPATE actively in political and public affairs.