Paris Basis

The Paris Basis is a group of principles guiding the relationships between individual YMCAs.

Ninety-nine YMCA leaders of individual YMCAs from Europe and North America met for the first time prior to the 1855 Paris World Exposition to discuss the possibility of joining together in a federation enhance co-operation amongst individual YMCA societies. This meeting resulted in the Paris Basis which is still a guiding principle of the organization today.

Two themes resonated during the council:

  1. the need to respect the local autonomy of YMCA societies and
  2. the dogma that Christian churches are united and the YMCA is a way of manifesting that unity. (Muukkonen, 2002:85)

Read more about Paris Basis:  Respect of Local Autonomy, Unity of Churches

Famous quotes containing the words paris and/or basis:

    Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and “retro” clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games. It is easy to find a public for eclectic works.
    Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)

    Most young black females learn to be suspicious and critical of feminist thinking long before they have any clear understanding of its theory and politics.... Without rigorously engaging feminist thought, they insist that racial separatism works best. This attitude is dangerous. It not only erases the reality of common female experience as a basis for academic study; it also constructs a framework in which differences cannot be examined comparatively.
    bell hooks (b. c. 1955)