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“The time has come for healing of memories,” said Fr Michael Lapsley, director of the Institute for Healing of Memories, South Africa, during an event held at the UN headquarters in New York, on 26 April. “This generation will not complete this task, but the next generation will be thankful for the effort.”

As the El Nino weather pattern challenges southern Africa, what is the role of churches in helping people realize their right to food and livelihood?

"With living hope, we invite our member churches to renew and strengthen our joint testimony and continue to raise their voices and working for abundant life,” said Rev. Milton Mejía, general secretary of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI), as he announced a new structure for the region’s largest ecumenical body on 14 April.

“Science and religion can provide solutions to poverty and injustice.” This was the theme of the 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Alternatives for Poverty Reduction and Ecological Justice (SAPREJ) in Kampala, Uganda, on 4-7 April. The conference was organized by the Kyambogo University and the WCC economic and ecological justice programme.

The World Council of Churches Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network (WCC-EDAN) will flourish and become a source of increasing education and dialogue, said the programme’s leaders at a meeting in Kenya on 10-15 April.

The Anglican Communion needs to be “aware of the great crises of our times,” the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said in a presidential address to members of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka, Zambia.

The archbishop and primate of Hong Kong, Rev. Dr Paul Kwong, has been elected as the new chair of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).

A workshop in Tanzania created a “safe space” in which adolescents, church leaders, theologians, development practitioners and others could share their feelings and ideas about HIV response.

In April 2014, 276 girls were kidnapped by the extremist group Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok, Borno State, Nigeria. Though 57 girls escaped, 219 are still missing.

Leaders and other representatives of Anglican churches throughout the world have gathered from 8 through 19 April for the 16th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka, Zambia. Participants are celebrating good news of faithful ministries within the communion, while exploring tensions among its provinces, especially over issues of sexual ethics on which Christians disagree.

Faith-based organizations presented significant input at a 6 April United Nations civil society hearing in New York City, a prelude to a UN High Level Meeting on HIV in New York on 8-10 June.

On March 24, Argentina commemorated the 40th anniversary of the military coup that lasted until 1983 and constituted a deep trauma in Argentina’s national history. Local member churches of the WCC and ecumenical organizations expressed their solidarity with the victims and stressed the importance of keeping the memory alive.

Sexual and reproductive health services must be not just "youth-friendly" but also “male- and female-friendly" and "youth participatory" so that young men and women gain access to the information and services they need and want, agreed adolescents who attended a workshop in Lomé, Togo on 24-25 March.

South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) leaders have in their Easter message reiterated a pledge no longer to simply make statements and stand idly by while their leaders ignore their advice in the quest for peace in their troubled nation.

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.

On 23 March, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, expressed his concern about the current social and political turmoil in Brazil, calling upon Christian churches and all sectors of Brazilian society “to uphold democratic principles, to respect fundamental human rights, and to ensure freedom of expression and opinion for all”.

As summer approaches, the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (WCC-EAA) is now in full preparation for the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016), hosted in Durban 18-22 July 2016.

“Ecclesiology and Ethics in Africa” is the theme of the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the World Council of Churches (WCC). The content includes principal presentations made at a June 2015 conference on Ecclesiology and Ethics: the State of Ecumenical Theology in Africa, held at the University of Western Cape in South Africa.

During a solidarity visit to Burundi 1-4 March, the World Council of Churches and the All Africa Conference of Churches sent a “Peace Message” urging all parties in Burundi to promote national unity, healing and reconciliation.

Preventing HIV, particularly among adolescents and youth, was the focus of a two-day meeting for 25 Sunday school teachers and chaplains from the Methodist Church of Togo, Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Togo, Assemblies of God, Baptist Convention and Pentecostal Church.