Name: Rev. Tara Curlewis

Nationality: Australian

Church: Uniting Church of Australia

Function: General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia

Participating as: Advisor

Age: One of those "zero" years this year

Family: Unmarried; brother with four children

First encounter with ecumenical movement: After visiting the Taizé Community in France in 1993, I helped organize a visit by the Taizé brothers to Australia, and then the Christian Conference of Asia General Assembly in 2005 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The importance of the churches' interfaith dialogue and building good interfaith relationships ensures that conflicts don't get exacerbated in the local setting. In Australia, when churches are burned, we've seen Muslim communities offering their facilities until the church can be rebuilt. Similarly, when mosques are attacked, Christian churches have come to their support. This sends an important message to our country and these actions are possible because of good dialogue between our communities. Our international aid and development agency works to bring peace to the 15 worst countries on the global peace index. It is engaged in such activities as removing land mines, providing prosthetic limbs and building sustainable communities.

It is important to be a good neighbour to the Pacific, with all the climate challenges that will see islands disappear in the next 50 years. There are challenges for the churches to be advocates for environmental refugees – those who will be displaced by climate change. Many governments are focused on emission trading schemes, but have not yet recognized the importance of a strategy for suitable relocation of people.

I've had several conversations with national councils of churches and regional ecumenical organizations. They are expressing the difficulties the churches are having in providing adequate resourcing to the ecumenical movement. This is one of the biggest challenges to both the churches and the ecumenical movement. Churches all face their own challenges and in some instances this leads to less engagement ecumenically. One of the foundational challenges is how to re-engage the churches in living the fellowship together.