Search results

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, and Dr Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, discussed possible collaborative actions to end extreme poverty during a meeting in Washington, D.C., on 4 May.

The WCC and the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance have agreed to re-establish the EAA as the WCC’s ecumenical initiative, preserving the future of this diverse Christian network for international action on selected, focused issues.

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.

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.

Justice must be the guiding principle for the upcoming summit on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, church organizations say.

Church leaders in the United States along with farmers and consumers will fast from 5 to 10 March to protest the retailer Publix’s rejection of the groundbreaking Fair Food Program in Florida. "... Theirs [Publix'] is a morally indefensible position and they can't look the workers in the eye," said Rev. Bernice Powell Jackson, president of the World Council of Churches for the North America region.

Climate change is impacting human life and nature in severe ways. Yet it is the vulnerable who suffer most. As the life of such people is dependent on eco-systems for survival, churches join hands with other faith based organizations to support their cause, stressing an ethical aspect in the debate on climate change.

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.

Fourteen-year old Gudiya Putul is not in Kingston, Jamaica attending the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC), but her name and history were brought to the attention of some IEPC participants Saturday during a workshop about economic injustice and human trafficking.

The general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, wrote today in a letter to UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon that "without significant transformations in global economic frameworks the attainment of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) by 2015 is endangered.”

The international tug-of-war over carbon emission thresholds and other instruments meant to limit the deterioration of the earth's climate has caused a big stir in recent months, but yielded little results. Therefore the international community must now get ready to take care of those who will be forced from their homes by climate change.

In an act of solidarity with the 2.5 billion people in the world who do not have access to safe, private and hygienic lavatories, staff members of a number of church-related organizations based at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, including the World Council of Churches (WCC), queued in front of a symbolic "toilet door" for ten minutes on World Water Day, 22 March.

The recent incidents of violence in Bagua, Peru are "but one instance of a series of government actions to abrogate the rights of the Indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon over land and resources", stated the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in a 9 June letter to President Alan García Pérez.

By Dr Manoj Kurian (*)

The myth according to which host countries are "victims" of migration needs to be challenged, as in fact their economies benefit from the exploitation of the migrants' work.

For one billion of the world population, "living with constant hunger" is "a normal state". However, there is nothing normal about that fact, which is "a result of the ways our societies have chosen to produce, share, buy and sell food".