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Mientras las guerras y los conflictos siguen obligando a miles de familias a huir de sus hogares cada día, el CMI pide a todas las personas de buena voluntad que apoyen la campaña del ACNUR #ConLosRefugiados. Al firmar la petición que se entregará en la sede de la ONU antes de la reunión de la Asamblea General del 19 de septiembre, se pide a los habitantes del mundo entero que alcen la voz para garantizar que todos los niños refugiados reciban educación, que todas las familias refugiadas tengan un lugar seguro donde vivir, y que todos los refugiados puedan trabajar o formarse para adquirir nuevas competencias y, así, contribuir positivamente a sus comunidades.

Canadian Lutheran World Relief and the WCC are planning joint action on refugee rights now that the Canadian church agency has been approved for WCC membership. Plans are for CLWR to collaborate with WCC on advocacy initiatives through the Ecumenical United Nations Office in New York.

El Socorro Mundial Luterano Canadiense y el CMI están planificando actividades conjuntas sobre los derechos de los refugiados ahora que el CMI ha aprobado que este organismo de la iglesia canadiense sea uno de sus miembros. Se prevé que el CLWR colabore con el CMI en iniciativas de promoción a través de la Oficina Ecuménica ante las Naciones Unidas en Nueva York.

The WCC offered prayers for peace in the USA while condemning acts of violence in recent days that have shocked the nation and people around the world.

Encouragement, inspiration and storytelling animated the plenary discussion of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace.

Las palabras de apoyo, la inspiración y la narración de historias animaron el debate plenario sobre la peregrinación de justicia y paz del Consejo Mundial de Iglesias (CMI).

Knut Refsdal started his pilgrimage from the Norwegian capital Oslo to the historic pilgrim town of Trondheim on 24 May. He is scheduled to arrive on the eve of the opening of the meeting of the WCC Central Committee on 21 June.

Experiences of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people around the world will be front and centre at an upcoming international conference in Trondheim, Norway. The Sami Church Council of the Church of Norway and the WCC are the chief organizers behind the conference, “Reconciliation Processes and Indigenous Peoples: Truth, Healing and Transformation,” which will take place from 20-21 June. Coinciding with the National Aboriginal Day of Prayer in Canada, the conference will be held in connection with the WCC Central Committee meeting also taking place in Trondheim from 22-28 June.

You disgust me. - “We value you despite our differences.” I’m scared of you. - “Let’s spend some time together.” Your children cannot come to this school. - “All of our children can play together.” Gathered in prayer and determined to overcome stigma and discrimination, participants in a 7 June interfaith service replaced words of rejection with words of acceptance.

Women and children figure prominently as refugees in mass movements of people in recent months and their rights will be at the forefront of a summer school organized in Greece by the Conference of European Churches.

Las mujeres y los niños son mayoría entre los refugiados que se han desplazado masivamente en los últimos meses, y sus derechos ocuparán un lugar prioritario en una escuela de verano organizada en Grecia por la Conferencia de Iglesias Europeas.

“We had heard that racism continues to be an issue in the United States,” said Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC Central Committee. “But we did not expect to find it so deep, so wide and so pervasive.”

In the Washington DC region on 18 April, Jim Winkler, general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, welcomed a contingent from the WCC who, with others, will be spending 18-25 April on a WCC-sponsored racial justice listening and support visit to several US communities which have suffered violent incidents related to race.

Canadian church leaders issued a joint statement endorsing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and promising to implement its principles. Doreen Spence, an aboriginal Canadian who was one of the architects of the declaration, welcomes the move.

“Racism remains an issue that divides society and even families,” said Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), in a Washington DC workshop on “the theological basis for lifting the voice of the marginalized.” She noted that these dramatically relevant words were not her own, but are drawn from a WCC study on race undertaken in the 1990s.

The Racial Justice Accompaniment Visit to the USA is a continuation of the WCC’s long history of racial justice work. As part of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace, the WCC wishes to listen to and express support for people and churches in the USA, and to encourage the efforts of member churches and ecumenical partners in the US, as well as other justice-seeking movements on these issues.

Two major crises have marked the months since the WCC called Katalina Tahaafe-Williams to work in Geneva on its migration, indigenous, and multicultural ministry programmes. When she took up the job in October, the European refugee crisis was in full flow. Then in November, terrorists attacked Paris.

Members of a small congregation in Toronto, Canada are celebrating. On Sunday the member of parliament for their riding came to the church to announce that the federal government has granted residency status to a Roma family that had lived under “sanctuary” protection in the church for 18 months.

As the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came to a close in Paris, a consultation organized by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance of the WCC on 11 December in Quezon City, Philippines considered “The Right to Food and Life in the Context of Climate Change.”

In the midst of a mounting climate of fear of refugees and immigrants, the WCC is calling on Christians to be true to the Biblical imperative to “welcome the stranger”.