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In January 2019, Aya Maasarwe, a university exchange student in Melbourne, was walking home at night and speaking to her sister on her phone. She was attacked, raped and murdered.
The public outcry intensified a national debate about violence against women in Australia following several high-profile murders in the country.

The World Council of Churches, working with the Jamaica Council of Churches and Caribbean and North America Council for Mission, offered a training in Jamaica to help people cope with violence against children, particularly sexual violence, gang-related violence, and gun violence.

In the wake of the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, the Omnia Institute for Contextual Leadership, based in Chicago, lifted up points of hope that peace will win in the end. In a 25 April message, Shanta Premawardhana, president of the institute, wrote that every person of every faith of every nation deserves to wake up in peace. “Every child deserves to feel safe, welcomed, and alive to the promise that each day brings,” Premawardhana wrote. “I'm sure you know that this is why we build Interfaith Peacemaker Teams in Sri Lanka.”

The Christian Conference of Asia gathered over 100 participants representing seven religions including Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, Bahai, Hindu and Sikh to meet with the participants of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace Reference Group to discuss relevant issues about religion and their implications to the Asian society.

An ecumenical delegation coordinated by the World Council of Churches (WCC) visited Indonesia on 15-22 February, including the provinces of Papua and Papua Barat - where increasing violence and discrimination against indigenous Papuan people was recently highlighted in a joint statement by five UN human rights mandate-holders.

Social media was awash with messages of love on Valentine’s Day, but from Thursdays in Black supporters, the flowers came with strong messages that love is not violent.

On 14 February, the Global Christian Forum Committee concluded a fruitful five-day meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where priorities were carved out and future directions of the network outlined.

From 18-25 January, Christians will embark on the largest prayer gathering in the world, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Whether praying together, exchanging preachers or planning ecumenical services, they will bear witness to Jesus’s prayer for his disciples that “they may be one so that the world may believe.”

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit sent greetings to Hindu brothers and sisters on Diwali, the festival of lights celebrated this year on 7 November.

“The seeds of peace come from the ground.” That is the vision that Rev. Dr Shanta Premawardhana, former director of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation at the World Council of Churches and now president of OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership, tries to follow with his organization.

A warm welcome with cheers and high expectations awaited WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit when he touched down in Kingston earlier this week. The Jamaican capital was the first stop of a 10-day tour in the Caribbean.

During an open air common prayer event held in Nelson Mandela Park in Kingston, Jamaica on 4 October, women and men processed and sang, most of them dressed in black as they renewed and expanded their commitment to the Thursdays in Black campaign seeking a world free from rape and violence.

Linette Vassel has been associated with the struggle for women’s rights in the Caribbean since the 1970s. She was the first coordinator of the Committee of Women for Progress, an activist organisation formed in 1976 which was among the pioneering organisations for the struggle for maternity leave with pay for women.

Thirty years ago, the founders of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women were searching for ways to not only help women across the globe seek justice but also highlight their contributions to churches and the world.

What have we achieved in building a just community of women and men? What must we still do? How can we strengthen ecumenical collaboration in reading the signs of our times in order to map the future direction of our work?

As the worst flooding in half a century struck the southern India state of Kerala, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit called for prayers for those affected and for those responding, and expressed his sympathy for those who have lost loved ones in the disaster.

As the anniversary of Korea's liberation and division draws near, churches in Korea and around the world prepare for the Sunday of Prayer on 12 August.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit is condemning an attack on renowned social activist Swami Agnivesh in Jharkhand state in northeast India. A violent mob of alleged fringe fundamentalist groups in the Pakur district attacked Agnivesh on the same day as a Supreme Court judgment called mob lynching unacceptable and holding the local administration, the state and central governments responsible for preventing it.

Youth in Asia Training for Religious Amity (YATRA) began at the Tao Fong Shan Christian Centre, Hong Kong on 7 July. Drawing young women and men from across the World Council of Churches (WCC) fellowship in Asia as well as theological institutions, the focus of this year’s YATRA is ‘Passionately Christian and Compassionately Interreligious’.

Rev. Gary Harriott knows there is a problem with violence against women and girls in Jamaica. Each year hundreds of women report having been raped and many more rapes and cases of aggression go unreported. Churches can make a difference by speaking out, he says.