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World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay sent a pastoral letter to Haitian brothers and sisters whose lives are lived in a land with hatred, violence, and suffering. “Although we might be physically distant, we are close to you in heart, in the spiritual sense,” wrote Pillay. “We all are children of God. We belong to one family, as Jesus Christ himself said.”

A delegation from the World Council of Churches and ACT Alliance is visiting Türkiye this week, expressing solidarity and support for churches on the ground responding to grave needs in the wake of the 6 February earthquake.

Sanctions should not harm the support for the most vulnerable, says a report on the impact of sanctions on humanitarian work presented at a side-event of 52nd session at the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva on 10 March.

Almost two weeks have passed since an earthquake that hit northern Syria and Turkey on 6 February, killing over 41,000 people. The disaster also caused thousands of buildings to collapse. In various cities such as Aleppo, Hama, and Lattakia, over 115 schools were destroyed.

Faith-based and humanitarian groups across the world were setting in motion appeals for aid and prayers as response expands in the wake of the devastating earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey on 6 February.

As communities in Turkey and Syria were left reeling in the wake of an earthquake that has killed at least 4,300 people—and that figure is growing—churches were reaching out to check on those affected and praying for the safety of those missing.

During an online morning prayer service on 16 November, Bishop Arnold Temple, chairperson of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network and the president of All Africa Conference of Churches, reflected on World Toilet Day, which will be observed this year on 19 November.

More than 40 church leaders and diakonia specialists from 15 Asian countries participated in training in ecumenical diakonia and development organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Chiang Mai, Thailand from 4-7 December.

Three weeks have now passed since this year’s edition of the World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden was wrapped up and delegates from all over the world headed home, inspired to “float” the issues, as the WCC Ecumenical Water Network chairperson, Bishop Arnold Temple from Sierra Leone, put it.

“Christ’s call for abundant life (John 10:10) means that the church must work to address the enormity of challenges, including access to water resources, care for creation, and adequate health care,” said Rev. Matthew Ross during a World Council of Churches (WCC) seminar on young people’s involvement in “Ecumenical Diakonia and Sustainable Development,” held in Matanzas, Cuba, July 15-20.

The World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network (WCC-EWN) invites you to use the season of Lent to reflect on water. Since 2008, EWN has been providing weekly theological reflections and other resources on water for the seven weeks of Lent and for World Water Day on 22 March. This year, the focus is on Latin America.

“The Amazon, the green heart of the Earth, is mourning and the life it sustains is withering,” begins a statement released by the World Council of Churches Executive Committee as it met in Amman, Jordan from 17-23 November.

Worsening global inequality is borne out as more people face famine now than any other time in modern history. Fr Nithiya Sagayam, national coordinator of the Association of Franciscan Families of India, is gravely concerned that the global response to extreme poverty is too low in almost every country while, he says, “corporations continue to grow richer and richer.”

Between 7-27 March, more than 100 images with the hash tag #7Weeks4Water were posted by Instagram users who joined the World Council of Churches (WCC) contest. Most of them told stories about water justice, illustrating the Lenten campaign “Seven Weeks for Water,” promoted by the WCC Ecumenical Water Network annually since 2008.

On the world scale of countries with plentiful water, Brazil comes out in the top league. It has 12 percent of the world’s fresh water supplies. Yet Magali do Nascimento Cunha does not see her country scoring so well when it comes to water and sanitation distribution.

The WCC sent an open letter to the Gatestone Institute in response to the institute’s web articles criticizing the WCC’s “Seven Weeks for Water” campaign. The campaign focuses on critical water issues affecting the people of Palestine, particularly in the occupied territories.