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Damaris, a Nigerian woman, described her experience of 2020: “We’ve gone through hell.”

Damaris and her sisters were kidnapped in March 2020 and threatened with death as their kidnappers demanded money. Her father had to sell everything and beg on the streets to meet their demands. “We are just a common people in Nigeria,” she said. “We don’t know what we did.”

Providing migrants and refugees a platform to share their concerns, challenges, and aspirations not only helps them, but also addresses xenophobia and helps build bridges with host communities, participants at a recent conference found.

The World Association for Christian Communication is creating a rapid response fund to help support grassroots community media outlets that provide accurate, trusted coronavirus-related information to vulnerable people who often cannot access mainstream media. Individuals and organisations are encouraged to contribute to the fund.

La Asociación Mundial para la Comunicación Cristiana ha creado un fondo de respuesta rápida para ayudar a los medios de comunicación comunitarios a proporcionar información correcta y fidedigna sobre el coronovirus a las personas vulnerables que normalmente no tienen acceso a los medios de comunicación convencionales. Se alienta a particulares y organizaciones a contribuir al fondo.

Ma’alul, a Palestinian village destroyed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, saw a visit by ecumenical accompaniers in mid-March. “I would have liked to invite you to a real home, not just as a refugee,” said Jad Saba Yusef Salem as he received the group of accompaniers to the village. Today, 95-year-old Salem is one of few remaining survivors from the 75 families who used to live in the village back in 1948.

Ma’alul, un pueblo palestino destruido durante la guerra árabe-israelí de 1948, recibió a mediados de marzo la visita de un grupo de acompañantes ecuménicos.

In a country now counting 100 million inhabitants, and where 2.5 percent are added annually, it is increasingly hard for the government to keep pace with the needs of its people. “In this challenging environment, the work of non-governmental organisations is critical in order to ease the burden on public service institutions”, explains Dr Maged Moussa Yanny, general director of EpiscoCare.

Dealing with people on the move is crucial to the work of the Church in the 21st century says Greek Metropolitan Gabriel of Nea Ionia and Filadelfia. More than 31,000 irregular migrants arrived in Greece by sea in 2018 and almost 17,000 arrived by land, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

On 14-16 December, the Conference of European Churches and Cumberland Lodge in the UK will host an Ecumenical Conference on Human Rights with the theme “Towards Peaceful Coexistence in the Middle East: Challenges and Opportunities.”

“I didn’t have any document that says who I am, so I started to look for answers that would help me to understand the real definition of my condition as a stateless person”, said Maha Mamo in a video interview published by World Council of Churches communications.

At a global conference on xenophobia in Rome, a panel of four religious leaders from, respectively, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Islamic traditions, spoke candidly about how xenophobia can sometimes be woven deeply into the fabric of these traditions.

En una conferencia mundial sobre la xenofobia celebrada en Roma, los cuatro dirigentes religiosos de las tradiciones budista, cristiana, hindú e islámica respectivamente que componían un panel hablaron con franqueza sobre cómo a veces la xenofobia puede estar profundamente arraigada en la estructura de estas tradiciones.

World Council of Churches leaders spoke on the theme “Hospitality: On a Pilgrim’s Way of Justice and Peace" at a symposium on 23 August at the Protestant Theological University Amsterdam.

Los dirigentes del Consejo Mundial de Iglesias (CMI) hablaron sobre el tema “Hospitalidad: en un camino de peregrinación hacia la justicia y la paz” en un simposio el 23 de agosto, en la Universidad Teológica Protestante de Ámsterdam.

Heads of churches in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories have reacted with dismay and concern to the Israeli Knesset’s adoption on 19 July 2018 of a new Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, which specifies that “The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”

Los jefes de las iglesias de Israel y de los territorios palestinos ocupados han reaccionado con consternación y preocupación ante la adopción por el Parlamento israelí –Knesset–, el 19 de julio de 2018, de una nueva ley básica: Israel como el Estado-Nación del pueblo judío, que especifica que “el derecho a ejercer la autodeterminación nacional en el Estado de Israel es exclusivo del pueblo judío”.

On 27 March, a hug between a 7-year-old girl, Majida, and her grandmother reflected the bright light of possibility that the ecumenical Humanitarian Corridors project continues to bring to refugees arriving in Italy. The child was waiting with other family members at the Fiumicino Airport in Rome as her grandmother arrived, safely and legally, in Italy from Lebanon.

To mark the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, sport demonstrations, cultural activities, and a #whitecard torch relay, with which the WCC and some of its partner organizations are linked, will be held in Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan on 6 April.