Search results

Rev. Pauline Wanjiru Njiru, eastern Africa regional coordinator for the World Council of Churches Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy (EHAIA), has worked with young people, church leaders and parents for several years now.

The first ever WCC Eco-School on Water, Food and Climate Justice will be held 24 July to 3 August, hosted by the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Blantyre Synod. Applications are now open with a deadline of 11 June (deadline extended).

Delegations from the ACT Alliance, Lutheran World Federation and WCC at the United Nations climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco are jointly demanding a more rapid transition to a low-carbon economy based on clean energy in order to stem rising global temperatures.

“In our community, HIV is not spoken about openly. And the challenge is, it’s like people are both informed and not informed. They know what HIV is, that it’s an illness that can be treated, but still they don’t want to really talk about it, like they don’t really want to know about it…”

Religious leaders must break their silence with regard to young people and sexual reproductive health, agreed young people and theologians gathered in Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) from 6-7 September.

Researchers around the world have a new resource for studying the history of the ecumenical movement — the personal papers of Philip Potter, general secretary of the WCC from 1972 to 1984. “We hope that the WCC Archives will receive many researchers from around the world who will learn more about the ecumenical movement to which Philip significantly contributed throughout his life,” said Hans von Rütte, WCC archivist.

Forty years after pupils in South Africa’s largest black township, Soweto, took to the streets to protest an inferior education system and set in motion the demise of apartheid, the release of Nelson Mandela and democracy, disillusion has replaced hope.

Leaders and other representatives of Anglican churches throughout the world have gathered from 8 through 19 April for the 16th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka, Zambia. Participants are celebrating good news of faithful ministries within the communion, while exploring tensions among its provinces, especially over issues of sexual ethics on which Christians disagree.

Amidst the current tense situation in Burundi, representatives of the World Council of Churches and the All Africa Conference of Churches have embarked on a solidarity visit to Burundi from 1 to 4 March.

As rector of the only ecumenical theological institution in Cuba, Rev. Dr Carlos Emilio Ham is at the forefront of exploring how local churches can engage in empowering diakonia.

Adebayo Anthony Kehinde leads an African group supporting ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Its interfaith campaign is especially significant on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings in Japan.

In view of the current refugee crisis, European churches are being encouraged to deepen their efforts in receiving, supporting and protecting refugees who arrive in the region. This call was made in a letter issued jointly by the WCC, the Conference of European Churches and the Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe.

A WCC ecumenical training programme recently held in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, prepared 30 young Congolese to be peace-builders amidst the reality of conflict and the backdrop of upcoming elections in the country.

A new initiative titled Ecumenical Institute for the Middle East is “promising and inspiring” in its attempt to train young Christians in ecumenical thought and history, according to Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC.

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.

A recent meeting of representatives from ecumenical organizations, Catholic, Evangelical and Pentecostal churches in Strasbourg, France has promised to address more effectively discrimination, persecution and violence faced by Christians around the world. This theme will be explored in depth through an international consultation to be held in 2015.

Inspired by the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace”, the Central Committee of the WCC, a chief governing body of the Council, has set directions for the work of the Council from 2014 to 2017.

As young people help to facilitate the meeting of the WCC's governing body, they are pursuing a collective pilgrimage of their own.

The moderator of the WCC Central Committee called for an openness to change in an era of encounter with “different types of cultures and religions”.

“The senseless war in South Sudan must end now,” said the WCC general secretary, following the pastoral visit of a high-level ecumenical delegation to local churches in Juba, South Sudan on 2 May.