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Students who visit the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva are often from theological or similarly Bible-related sections of educational institutions, but not always. This year a group of secular students from a state university in the United States arrived at the WCC to tap into work related to its health and healing programme.

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 increased interest of corporate organizations in the World Water Forum has a tendency to discourage civil society’s participation in addressing the water crisis,” said Dinesh Suna, coordinator of the Ecumenical Water Network of the WCC upon his return from the 7th World Water Forum, which concluded on 17 April in Daegu and Gyeongbuk, Republic of Korea.

Two new interactive websites have been launched by the WCC in order to promote strong engagement of churches with the vision of a “pilgrimage of justice and peace”.

A message of achieving human dignity, and the right to hope, in a world threatened by climate change was proclaimed on 28 April by WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit in a meeting convened on climate change by the Vatican.

As part of churches’ on-going struggles for climate justice, the campaign Act Now for Climate Justice was launched at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland on Earth Day.

The WCC has joined over 30 leaders from major world religions and heads of global faith-based organizations today in launching a call to action to end extreme poverty by 2030, a goal shared with the World Bank Group.

The increasingly influential role of the financial sector, its impact on communities and their struggles toward a just financial system remained the focus of discussions in the workshops organized by the churches at the World Social Forum.

Anglican and Reformed member churches of the WCC have taken significant new actions toward climate justice.

The social and ecological cost of expanding mineral exploration and extraction was highlighted by churches at the World Social Forum.

A coalition of civil society and labour groups has launched an Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation in response to rising inequality and mounting public anger over corporate tax cheats. Among the organizations responsible for the establishment of the Commission is the WCC.

In a high level panel on Climate Change and Human Rights held at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said that despite all negative conditions “we have the right to hope” – not as a matter of passive waiting but as an active process towards justice and peace, in which human rights should play a key role.

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.

Publications focusing on eco-theology, ethics and climate change were presented by their authors in an event hosted by Globethics.net – a Geneva-based global ethics network in collaboration with the WCC.

Dr Fulata Mbano-Moyo, the WCC programme executive for Women in Church and Society, called on the movement of Christian students to reclaim its radical transforming nature towards a “pilgrimage of gender justice”.

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.

Outcomes, disappointments, as well as encouraging signs from the United Nations Climate Change Conference and the Peoples Summit held late last year in Lima, Peru, were discussed at length by representatives of faith communities.

Churches and religious leaders are at the forefront of efforts to mobilize action for a legally binding agreement on world’s climate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris at the end of 2015. The motivation of the WCC for its role in this arena is summarized in the title of its environmental programme: Care for Creation and Climate Justice.

Thousands of people are planning to embark on a pilgrimage of climate justice – either on foot or on bicycles – in many parts of the world.

Climate justice has been the focal point of the WCC advocacy strategy at 20th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which concluded on 12 December in Lima, Peru.