Records of YMCA international work in Pakistan

The roots of YMCA work in Pakistan date back to 1875 when an association was established in Lahore and another in Karachi in 1905. These associations were part of the YMCA of India until the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. Subsequently, the Pakistani YMCAs became members of the Council of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon until 1954 when the Lahore and Karachi associations established the National Council of Pakistan.

The early program of the Pakistani YMCA was focused on the traditional physical, spiritual, and educational development of boys through organized sports and religious and educational activities. Both the Lahore and Karachi associations also placed emphasis on community service work, especially among Pakistan's Christian minority. The associations also offered hobby clubs, reading rooms, and hostel facilities. Pakistanis of all faiths were welcome at the associations, and in fact a majority of the members were Muslim.

Raymond D. Healy was sent to Pakistan as fraternal secretary in 1952, and David R. Wilson followed in 1953. Healy and Wilson sought to address the losses of English and Indian staff, who had left following the 1947 partition, by encouraging the indigenization of the association staff and the board of directors in Karachi and Lahore. Also under the direction of fraternal secretaries, both associations used funds from the Buildings for Brotherhood program to construct new buildings in the early 1960s. The Karachi Association also received funding from the German YMCA to open the YMCA Technical Institute in 1961, which grew to become a well-known vocational training program.

The National Council made several unsuccessful attempts to expand the YMCA to other areas of Pakistan. However, YMCA associations failed to take root in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Sialkot, Sukkar, and Quetta, partly because the National Council could not afford to provide secretaries to each new association. In addition, it was not easy for the YMCA to operate in a predominantly Muslim nation. In 1957, students in Lahore protested outside the YMCA because of its refusal to rent a room for a political rally on the Kashmir dispute. In addition, growing anti-Western sentiment, especially following Pakistan's 1965 War with India, was a determent to the expansion of the YMCA. However, the associations in Karachi and Lahore continued to develop; each association served over 1,300 members by 1975.

During the 1970s, the YMCA expanded its traditional program to include more community development work. The Karachi YMCA began to operate a recreation center in the Korangi refugee settlement, and the Lahore Association launched a program to feed impoverished children with funding from the Refugee Work Committee of the YMCA World Alliance. The YMCA also established the Urban Uplift Program to teach technical skills to illiterate young men in urban slums. With the support of the Karachi Association, the YMCA opened a vocational training program in the city of Quetta in 1977, while the Lahore Association established a vocational school earlier in the decade to teach typing, steganography, accounting, and other commercial trades. The YMCA also reinitiated efforts to establish a YMCA in Islamabad. The YMCA's development work was partially supported by funding from USAID into the 1980s.

The following is a list of individuals who served as YMCA secretaries in Pakistan, along with their dates of service, if known: