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Early struggles in developing a response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic were remembered by African women church leaders who gathered in Nairobi, Kenya to celebrate more than 30 years of their Christian ministry in the churches of their region.

Climate change is increasing inequality and impacting territorial integrity and security as well as provoking the forced displacement of people seriously affecting human rights of people.

Women from churches across Africa have gathered in Kenya to focus on the achievements, challenges and opportunities of women's ministry in African churches over the past 30 years, as well as their responses to the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

“The Palestinian people thirst for water justice.” So claims a recently issued statement by a fact-finding group that this month visited Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza to better understand the critical issues of water and sanitation in Palestine.

Religion is a double-edged sword for women healing from violence and trauma, yet they find their way out of pain in amazing ways, say two scholars whose work investigates and analyses this.

More than 400 representatives of German ecumenical groups attending an assembly in Mainz, Germany have affirmed their commitment to move forward in a “pilgrimage of justice and peace” – a call from the WCC 10th Assembly.

African churches must confidently step into the lives of minority groups suffering from HIV and AIDS supporting them irrespective of their circumstances, said, author of A Walk at Midnight: Journeying with Abused Women and Girls towards inner Dignity and Wholeness, Catherine Mumbi Wanjohi, known for her work with sex workers facing the threat of HIV and AIDS in Kenya.

Lent, a season for prayers and reflections by Christians around the world, has become an opportunity for the churches to respond to climate change, an issue which deeply impacts the communities they serve.

Religious beliefs and traditions in Africa continue to influence the way HIV is spread, especially among young women. There is a great need to understand these issues from a faith-based perspective, so that church leaders may engage in a constructive dialogue to help and support women threatened by the pandemic.

Cameroon has been identified as a nation with a high prevalence of HIV and AIDS, according to a UNAIDS report. What are churches in the country doing to aid in healing communities faced with the threat of this disease?

An “inter-generational dialogue on faith, culture, HIV and sexual reproductive health and rights” was initiated on 11 March in New York City by the World YWCA in partnership with the WCC and other international organizations. The dialogue was organized as a side event at the United Nations 58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Faith-based organizations, with the United Nations, have urged expansion of access to anti-retroviral treatment for persons living with HIV and AIDS in a consultation organized by the UNAIDS and Caritas Internationalis, from 25 to 26 February in Rome, Italy.

Starting on Monday, 3 March, the “Seven Weeks for Water” campaign invites churches, faith-based organizations and individuals around the world to join a “pilgrimage towards water justice”.

A resource book on HIV and AIDS has recently been launched by a member church of the WCC promoting visions of a strengthening partnership among churches and faith-based organizations in the Philippines to address country’s HIV epidemic.

Dr Erlinda N. Senturias, a physician, educator, ecumenical activist and former WCC staff member from the Philippines, has been named by President Benigno Aquino III to the nation’s new Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board.

The WCC general secretary, following a session on climate change at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, stressed the “significant role of financial policy-making by the states in addressing climate change.”

The Ecumenical Panel on a New International Financial and Economic Architecture has concluded its second meeting in Switzerland, developing advocacy strategies for churches to ensure economic justice and the ecological wellbeing of the communities they serve.

At the Second United Nations Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, human rights defenders from Colombia and Guatemala exposed degrading environmental, ecological, economic and social impacts on indigenous communities. These impacts are consequences of the projects run by multinational companies in a number of countries.

Representatives of faith-based organizations at the International Conference on AIDS and STI’s in Africa (ICASA) have called for the recognition of a clear link between sexual and gender-based violence and the continued spread of HIV and AIDS. Together they affirmed their significant role in the post-2015 agenda to turn the tide of HIV and related inequities.

During 2014 the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey will be holding a number of seminars raising awareness on issues related to women’s concerns, justice and peace, ecology and Christian theology, interfaith relations and migrant churches.