During the debate on human rights and obstetric fistula at the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council, the World Council of Churches (WCC) with its ecumenical partners called upon governments to pay more attention to the prevention of obstetric fistula in their policies, strategic plans, and budgets.
Rev. Canon Dr Emily Awino Onyango, a Kenyan woman theologian, was consecrated on 27 March as the assistant bishop of the Bondo Anglican Diocese, making her the first woman to hold such a post in the church in east-central Africa.
The National Council of Churches USA (NCCUSA) will confer its President’s Award for Excellence in Faithful Leadership to Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) central committee.
Religious communities’ significant role in creating safer, sustainable and inclusive cities has been underlined at the United Nations Habitat Assembly in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
More than 70 African ecumenical leaders will take part in training seminars for diakonia and development, improving human resource development capacities of churches across all regions of the continent.
During a solidarity visit in Kenya on 10-12 October, leaders from the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee met with Kenyan church representatives, expressed their support for Kenyan churches working toward peace and justice, and deepened their vision for future WCC events, including the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism set for March 2018.
In a joint statement from the National Council of Churches of Kenya and the All Africa Conference of Churches, Kenyan communities expressed their hopes for peace in the lead-up to elections slated for 8 August.
The WCC general secretary extended condolences on the death of Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat, former moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA).
“Statelessness renders people’s vulnerability to abuse and to denial of their rights invisible to national authorities. In this sense the right to a nationality is a threshold issue for access to protection of all other human rights - almost a 'right to have rights'”, said Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), following a regional training workshop on birth registration and gender discriminatory nationality laws in Africa, organized by the WCC in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11–13 May.
The African continent bears witness to the tragic consequences of the manipulation of religion to incite violence. Yet it is also the home of untold instances of the power of religious leaders and actors to exert a positive influence, said panellists at an international meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, today.
