News
Chantal Scheidecker, a former member of the World Council of Churches (WCC) staff who was instrumental in the 1960s during formational stages of the Churches‘ Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME), has died in Geneva on 28 November 2015 at the age of 82.
In a letter to her family, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit wrote of her witness in the field of international migration: “Her years of dedicated service in this important work are part of the foundation which undergirds the Council’s current work related to migration and refugees.”
Doris Peschke, general secretary of CCME, said on behalf of the Commission: “We share her ambitions and continue the work to serve the churches in their commitment to migrants, refugees and ethnic minority people as we believe that every person is created in the image of God.”
While working in the WCC, Scheidecker took responsibility for the French-language publication Migrations, known in English as Migration Today. After becoming secretary of the Churches’ Committee on Migrant Workers in Europe, precursor to the CCME, she also provided her services to UNHCR, the United Nations commission for refugees.
“Chantal should not be forgotten,” says Baldwin Sjollema, a one-time colleague in the WCC, adding that Scheidecker “was a very devoted and hard-working person. She was strong-minded, and she was ready to stick her neck out for her convictions of justice.”
