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An ecumenical workshop held recently in Matanzas, Cuba strongly promoted life-affirming epistemologies that can help to envision and construct alternatives to inequitable and destructive socio-economic systems that prevail in today’s world.

The Episcopal Church of South Sudan and Sudan’s diocese of Wau has developed a course titled “Reconcile - Moving Forward in Peace”, inviting people to be peace-builders this Lenten season.

The adverse impact of business activities on the lives of members of the local population in Colombia and El Salvador was highlighted by the WCC-sponsored participants at the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights.

United Nations leaders and the WCC have agreed that the international community and faith leaders need to cooperate more on working to fight the scourge of the deadly Ebola virus.

A report from the WCC calls for an effective response in meeting the needs of communities faced with unprecedented financial and economic crises, the threat of climate change and widespread ecological devastation.

The “pilgrimage is both a way to continue working for the one ecumenical movement and a way to move forward in our times that offer new dimensions, opportunities and practices,” said the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, this week invited 20 of its major partners from the private sector and civil society to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The WCC general secretary represented faith based-organizations at a high-level breakfast in New York hosted by the UN agency.

In Africa, where up to 40 percent of the health care facilities are provided by faith based organizations, Dr Mirfin Mpundu, executive director of the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network, says that due to their unique position churches can play a special role in eliminating HIV and AIDS and bringing improvements in the lives of people living with the virus.

Grateful for the opportunity of working for a global fellowship of the churches, the two new interns at the WCC aspire to use their personal and professional experiences from Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the WCC’s work on gender justice and health issues.

The opening of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago was one of the most dramatic symbols of the global changes sweeping across the world in 1989.

To respond to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, which has taken more than 3,000 lives, the WCC brought to the table representatives of Christian aid organizations and United Nations agencies to learn from each other and to escalate their efforts.

The WCC has decided fossil fuel investment is a “no-go” zone on its list of investments, reflecting both its commitment to reversing climate change and ethical investments.

Churches must commit themselves to create “healing and reconciling ministry that puts people at the centre and allow for a wholistic approach in health care”, states a declaration issued during an international symposium on “Christian Responses to Global Health and Development” in Tübingen, Germany.

The chasm between the haves and have-nots is increasing around the world. And churches need to do more to ensure economic justice for communities. This perspective underlined the discussions at a plenary held during the WCC Central Committee meeting on 5 July in Geneva, Switzerland.

Religion is a double-edged sword for women healing from violence and trauma, yet they find their way out of pain in amazing ways, say two scholars whose work investigates and analyses this.

A resource book on HIV and AIDS has recently been launched by a member church of the WCC promoting visions of a strengthening partnership among churches and faith-based organizations in the Philippines to address country’s HIV epidemic.

Dr Erlinda N. Senturias, a physician, educator, ecumenical activist and former WCC staff member from the Philippines, has been named by President Benigno Aquino III to the nation’s new Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board.

The WCC general secretary, following a session on climate change at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, stressed the “significant role of financial policy-making by the states in addressing climate change.”

The Ecumenical Panel on a New International Financial and Economic Architecture has concluded its second meeting in Switzerland, developing advocacy strategies for churches to ensure economic justice and the ecological wellbeing of the communities they serve.

At the Second United Nations Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, human rights defenders from Colombia and Guatemala exposed degrading environmental, ecological, economic and social impacts on indigenous communities. These impacts are consequences of the projects run by multinational companies in a number of countries.