“Religions as instruments of peace” is the subtitle of a 2011 summer course on “Building an interfaith community”. Twenty-three students from more than a dozen nations have assembled at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland for the course which runs from 4 to 29 July.

Hendrew Lusey has never forgotten the words he first heard at a WCC workshop on human sexuality in 2002. At that time, he had recently been appointed the regional coordinator for central Africa with the Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA).

Dr Jorge Ramirez Reyna reflects on the issue of racism in Peru and the conference on racism in Latin America which was organized by WCC and the Latin American Council of Churches, 22-24 June, in Managua, Nicaragua.

Dr Susan Parry has turned her vision of the “AIDS-competent church” into a reality that has helped thousands of people across southern Africa and the rest of the world whose lives are affected by HIV.

The story starts with Peter. Not biblical Peter, just a kid named Peter who's a little bit overweight, who has bumps on his face, and, oh, yeah – sometimes, he doesn't smell very good.

When 15-year-old Lydia* realized she was pregnant, she was forced by Jamaican law to leave her high school in Kingston. Left with no way to continue her education, she was struggling to find a way forward for herself and her baby.

The accepted axiom is, as the climate changes so the world, too, will change in dramatic and sometimes undesirable ways. What does this often rapid change mean to Christians whose faith is intertwined with the glory and beauty of God’s creation?

Is the churches’ current theological reflection on stewardship and climate change ready for the rapid shifting of winds, weather, and life on earth as we know it and our grandparents knew it?

The Rev. Jennifer Leath is a member the WCC's Joint Consultative Group with the Pentecostals and of ECHOS, the WCC commission of youth. She is a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the USA and identifies herself as “a Black American who lives in solidarity with those in the African Diaspora and all those who experience oppression, these are they who capture my heart.”

Jamaica – a proud and independent Caribbean nation struggling with a high level of violence and criminality – is the location of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) facilitated by the WCC from 17 to 25 May 2011.

Community elder Danilo Torvator and his family have one misfortune in life. They opted to settle in a river valley in the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range on the Philippine island of Luzon.