The Young Women's Christian Association Conducts Its Annual Fund Drive

It bears a message of social reform. On the occasion of the annual campaign of financial donations carried out by an elite group of ladies from March 18 until the first of last April: the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Beirut is a branch of a worldwide organization spread through 72 of God's countries.

It was founded by the head council in the United States twenty-six years ago, during which time the branch has continued its endeavor to raise the level of the community, to better the condition of woman, and to train her to work singly and united, in an atmosphere saturated with understanding and sympathy, one that develops her latent powers and refines her natural gifts with a sound refinement that enables her to perform her duty toward her home, her surroundings, her nation, and a world in which she is bound by the tie of the lofty, unifying idea at which woman's work aims in every one of its lands.

A Glimpse of Its Work

The Junior Girls' Branch — its membership includes 250 girls from among the schoolgirls of Beirut, ranging in age from 12 to 18. This branch has chapters in Aleppo, Tripoli, and Marjayoun, which follow the course of the parent branch in performing their duty of service toward their surroundings.

Woman in Work and Profession

The Association has founded branch clubs whose membership is open to every girl and lady who pursues work outside the home in order to earn her living. Their aim is to better the position of the working woman and to train her to understand her civic rights and duties. The Association opens its doors daily to receive working girls, providing for them in its building a place to eat, rest, and amuse themselves in their hours of leisure.

Since 1926 the Association has sought to study the situation of the girl employed in industrial workshops and to concern itself with her particular problems, which has given it an understanding of the sanitary and moral conditions of the workshops and of the workers' wages, and has made it easy for it to lay these before public opinion so as to win its sympathy and support. It has likewise striven to put into effect the government laws designed to protect the interests and rights of the woman working in the industrial field. The Association endeavors to raise the educational level of working women by means of night schools, conferences, and camps; and there are two to four hundred girls growing accustomed to the cooperative work that leads to the betterment of their condition and the service of their community.

Fighting the Employment of Juveniles

The Association's voice was among the first raised to fight the employment of juveniles, and it has cooperated with the other organizations in demanding that the government lay down laws to protect the child from the hardships of labor and from constant tyranny. It has succeeded in creating a permanent committee that each year concerns itself with more than three hundred children, giving them evening lessons and watching, as far as possible, over the improvement of their health.

Education and Refinement

The Association gives classes in the teaching of languages, typewriting, and shorthand. It is at present concerned with founding a library in which to gather the best books and magazines, from whose reading every lady thirsting to develop her thinking and refine her taste may profit.

The Association began organizing them in 1927. They are held every year in the loveliest of the Lebanese summer resorts, and to them come schoolgirls and working girls, members and non-members of the Association alike. While the camp is in session, lectures are given on various important subjects, and the girls are trained to know how to profit from their idle hours and are enabled to find scope for service and production.

Nutrition Camps

In its work the Association has attached special importance to the problem of nutrition, which sweeps over no small proportion of the children of Lebanon. In 1937 it established special nutrition camps, for which it chooses each year fifty children of the needy class afflicted with wasting of the body. After a medical examination has been made, it provides them with what they need of milk, eggs, fruit, and meat, and the refreshing mountain air, and sets aside for them fixed hours for rest and physical exercise. In most cases it also attends to their medical treatment.

An Employment Bureau

Its task is to smooth the way to finding work for the hundreds of women and girls seeking employment in hospitals, offices, commercial establishments, and family homes.

Sound Education

The aim of the committee in charge of this work is confined to three points:

First — teaching the principles of health, and the importance of prevention, by word and by deed, and at times by the showing of pictures.

Second — attention to the improvement of the general health by means of physical exercise, with a medical examination made of every girl who joins the physical-exercise classes.

Third — the sound use of leisure time — organizing outings which the members take on foot or on bicycles, or practice in the folk dances.

Membership of the Association

The institution's membership numbers some two hundred ladies who believe in its aim and sacrifice their time and a share of their mental and physical energy to strengthen this aim, to serve it, and to work for its realization. And there are some 1,500 girls and ladies who enjoy the refining and educational opportunities which the institution opens to them.