YWCA of the USA

The YWCA is the largest and the oldest multicultural women's organization in the world. There are over 25 million members worldwide, spread over 106 countries. In the United States there are 300 associations that include more than 2.6 million members. The YWCA provides shelter and a safe haven for both women and girls.

The main offices for the YWCA are located in Washington, D.C. They focus on helping women but the offices also employ male employees as well as male members to the advisory boards and committees. The agency provides services to help meet the needs of women in the communities where they are located.

Services they provide include child care, domestic violence assistance, rape crisis intervention, shelters for victims of domestic violence along with their families, career counseling, job training and training for teens in entrepreneurial areas. The organization promotes the existence of a community for women in each association by developing women's leadership skills in an environment that is supportive, brings change through diversity and fosters hope for future. In some of the local associations fitness classes are also offered, as well as other programs that are designed to empower women.

Each YWCA analyzes its community to determine the need for programs and all programs must fit into the YWCA mission to empower women and eliminate racism. The organization underwent a major changed in 2001, making it a bottom up unit where the foundation, its local associations, is the key to the organization.

There are nine regional councils and each of the different local associations is affiliated with a specific Regional Council. Each of the local associations is represented on the Board of Directors of their Regional Council by two members.

And each Regional Council in turn sends a member to be on the national committees. The national office is in charge of branding and marketing and conducting advocacy across the nation on a national level.

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