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At an online roundtable hosted by the All Africa Conference of Churches, male “champions for gender justice” shared their ideas and insights during their yearlong service as men who are helping to prevent gender-based violence.

World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed the revulsion of the global fellowship of churches at the murder of Deborah Yakubu, a second-year college student beaten to death and burnt by a group of her fellow students in Sokoto, northern Nigeria.

In the years since it was founded in 2016, the International Centre for Inter-Faith Peace and Harmony in Kaduna, Nigeria has been building a cadre of peacemakers who are witnesses to inter-religious peace and harmony. It also continues to serve as a physical symbol helping Muslims and Christians work together more effectively.

A webinar hosted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) on 26 November will explore “Conflict Zones and Covid-19: A call to compassion.” Speakers from Cameroon, Nigeria, South Sudan, Lebanon, Belarus and Colombia will offer their insights on how conflict exacerbates the conditions for contracting and treating COVID-19 among civilians caught in the crossfire, especially women.

“The church has lots of roles in removing barriers that prevent persons with disabilities from living a fulfilled life. All are created in the image of God and have equal rights. Sexual and reproductive health is one such right that should not be denied to any woman,” said Rev. Evans Onyemara, general secretary of the Christian Council of Nigeria during a training on empowering women with disabilities on sexual and reproductive health care held at Umuahia, Nigeria from 9-11 March.

Moravian women pastors and evangelists have said: “Enough is enough: no more rape and violence against women." Women leaders of the church marched in the streets of Mbeya town in Tanzania wearing black on Thursday to officially launch the Thursdays in Black global campaign to stand against rape and violence.

The WCC-EHAIA programme organized a workshop on 27-29 November during which young people in Nigeria could highlight positive masculinity and femininity.

“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.

Fifty adolescents, young people, teachers, theologians, health professionals, people living with HIV and religious leaders met in Abuja from 22-26 May to discuss positive masculinities and femininities in faith communities.

The primate of The Church of the Lord, Aladura, Worldwide, an African initiated church founded in 1925 talks with pride about how the founder had a calling from God to have women serving with men in pastoral work. Primate Rev. Dr Rufus Okikiolaolu Ositelu, metropolitan archbishop of the church visited Geneva and the WCC on 29-30 January.

Rev. Ikechukwu Anaga remembers when people didn’t know about “Thursdays in Black,” the global movement resisting attitudes and practices that permit rape and violence. But his community of Aba, in Abia State, Nigeria, was seeing firsthand an increase in gender-based violence and rape. When Anaga helped others in his community make a firm decision to do something about it, the zeal and passion for Thursdays in Black rose.

The marketplace - also referred to as a “sokoni" - became an opportunity for faith and community-based institutions to share what they do to improve the lives of people around them.

Traveling from Tanzania, Esther Ngulwa brought a sense of hope regarding gender equality as she spoke on 10 March, two days before the start of the 62nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62) in New York City.

More than 50 women from across the globe, representing diverse faith traditions, gathered on 6-7 March in Arusha, Tanzania, for a pre-conference on the theme “Women in Mission on the move of the Spirit: Mentorship for Transformation”.

On 2 March, Christian women from 170 countries will observe the World Day of Prayer, a tradition that has continued since 1927. The 2018 theme, “All God’s Creation is Very Good!” features materials written by people from Suriname, on the northeastern coast of South America.

When more than 100 religious leaders and other actors from around the world gathered at the UN in Vienna in mid-February, it was a manifestation of unity between religious and non-religious organizations, and a genuine commitment to cooperate in dealing with hate speech and incitement to violence that could lead to atrocity crimes.