By and large, youth are not just concerned about themselves. They are not content with having their own interests met. They take a broader view of the wider community within which they live. When motivated and mobilised they will mostly act in the wider interest of society. That is why youth movements often cut across the class divide. Idealism has no place for barriers and distinctions based on class, ethnicity, religion and other such social barriers. Nor do they act in exclusion on generational issues.

Within the YMCA, this has been more than visible right through history. Repeatedly, young people have not asked for an exclusive youth movement. They have sought partnership with adults. But they have been uncompromising in their ideals. They have wanted a Movement that is participatory, which responds boldly and creatively to social challenges, one which is gender inclusive, youth influenced - indeed, energetic in every way it can be. Young people look back with pride when they talk about the YMCA. They know it was "their generation" who created the YMCA from a dream to a fact, from a small group of people in London into a worldwide Movement of people, young and old, women and men, who seek to transform the world into a community of people who live on the basis of values of justice, peace and reconciliation.