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The World Council of Churches, working with the Jamaica Council of Churches and Caribbean and North America Council for Mission, offered a training in Jamaica to help people cope with violence against children, particularly sexual violence, gang-related violence, and gun violence.

Nowadays, any cause can be effectively promoted in a blink of an eye, with a click on a button. At virtually no cost, messages travel fast around the globe through social media and other digital platforms. For good and bad, but mostly for good. Because without it, grassroots movements, such as the Arab Spring, which started in Tunisia in 2010 and ended up toppling several governments, would have had a much harder time rallying support and getting their message across to key audiences.

The latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the World Council of Churches, opens with an article by WCC general secretary the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, “Freedom, Love and Justice,” reflecting on the theme for the WCC's 11th Assembly in 2021, “Christ's love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.”

In the wake of the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, the Omnia Institute for Contextual Leadership, based in Chicago, lifted up points of hope that peace will win in the end. In a 25 April message, Shanta Premawardhana, president of the institute, wrote that every person of every faith of every nation deserves to wake up in peace. “Every child deserves to feel safe, welcomed, and alive to the promise that each day brings,” Premawardhana wrote. “I'm sure you know that this is why we build Interfaith Peacemaker Teams in Sri Lanka.”

“What can one person do” can often sound like a lament about powerlessness.

For Thursdays in Black, though, one person can build a movement.

David Emmanuel Goatley, Faculty Director of the Office of Black Church Studies at Duke University Divinity School in North Carolina, USA, learned about Thursdays in Black through his involvement with the World Council of Churches’ Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace. He has now launched the campaign through the Office at Duke University.

The Protestant Church of Baden, whose region will host the World Council of Churches 11th Assembly in 2021, has joined the Thursdays in Black campaign with a prayer and a challenge to express solidarity with those suffering from abuse of power.

World Council of Churches (WCC) representatives involved in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women say its outcomes reflect many of the pressures affecting efforts towards gender equality globally and call for churches to be active agents for justice in the lead-up to a critical UN review in 2020.

From joint statements, to reflections, to exchanging ideas, the World Council of Churches (WCC) is engaging in the sixty-third session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Social media was awash with messages of love on Valentine’s Day, but from Thursdays in Black supporters, the flowers came with strong messages that love is not violent.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has released a video that highlights reflections from across the globe on how love heals, not hurts. The short film is part of a special WCC campaign addressing abuse and violence in “loving” relationships.

Women in Liberia participated in the Thursdays in Black campaign by staging a peaceful demonstration in the streets of Margibi County against the growing waves of violence against women and girls.

Theology can provide solutions for the sustainability issues that challenge the common home of humanity, according to the contributors to the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review, the quarterly journal of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

A special WCC campaign is tackling abuse and violence in “loving” relationships. Valentine’s Day, 14 February, falls on a Thursday this year, and is being connected to the Thursdays in Black campaign against rape and violence.

A group of Swedish Saint Lucy’s Day performers swapped the traditionally red ribbons for black ones this year, in support for the Thursdays in Black campaign.

A worship service at the Glasgow University Chapel on 25 November featured recorded contributions by World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri as well as two other women who have dedicated their lives to promoting gender justice.

On 7 November, the WCC Executive Committee approved a Communication Strategy through 2021, the year of the next WCC Assembly.

Concrete action by churches everywhere is necessary to counter the persistent scourge of sexual and gender-based violence, urges the WCC in a plaintive call from Uppsala, Sweden.

Gender justice has been an important facet of the ACT Alliance Assembly being held Uppsala, Sweden this week.

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit expressed heartfelt sympathies to the Tree of Life synagogue and to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA) after a gunman shot and killed 11 people and injured several others during a baby naming ceremony on 27 October.

A warm welcome with cheers and high expectations awaited WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit when he touched down in Kingston earlier this week. The Jamaican capital was the first stop of a 10-day tour in the Caribbean.