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Economic empowerment and a thriving positive engagement in community life for women affected by HIV and AIDS was the focus of a training sponsored by the Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy of the WCC in Harare, Zimbabwe.

"In COP21 we decide whether the glass is half full or half empty, but the glass must be transparent", tweeted climate activist Yeb Saño at the end of a day full of activities engaging leadership and staff members of the WCC, the Lutheran World Federation and ACT Alliance, at the Ecumenical Centre, in Geneva, Switzerland.

World leaders will meet at the crucial United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris from 30 November to 11 December. Faith groups around the world are building awareness of the importance of reaching a binding and ambitious agreement at the talks. In October, WCC members have taken part in climate activities in Germany.

Trained by the WCC programme EHAIA, church leaders and activists in Kenya are working hard to address HIV and AIDS. They focus on HIV prevention measures, accessibility to the treatment and most importantly eliminating the discrimination and stigma attached to HIV, prevalent even within church communities.

At the 42nd Committee on World Food Security in Rome on 12-15 October, the intergovernmental body continued its quest to coordinate a global approach to food security.

In a recent statement, religious leaders called for an ambitious climate agreement, reminding all governments to commit to emission cuts and climate risk reduction. They promised to continue working for climate justice, including divestment from fossil energy.

“It would be a scandal if the Climate Conference in Paris would not deliver what is needed,” said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, during a public event in Lengerich, Germany on 13 October.

“The Arctic is the epicentre of climate injustice,” said Bishop Mark MacDonald of the Anglican Church of Canada and the WCC president for North America during a conference organized by the Church of Sweden and the Canadian Council of Churches held in Storforsen, Sweden.

“Our hope as Christians rests in our belief that that our world is not destined to disappear but to be transformed, and that human beings capable of self-destruction are also able to unite and to choose that which is good”, reads a statement of the Council of Christian Churches of France focusing on the upcoming meeting of the United Nations on climate change in Paris later this year.

Tackling the tragedy of hunger in a world of abundance, the Churches’ Week of Action on Food (11-18 October) is an opportunity for Christians, communities and all people around the world to act together for food justice.

Well over 250 young people came to Taizé from 30 August to 6 September 2015 to participate in the first theological symposium on “Brother Roger's Contribution to Theological Thought”. Those invited to this time of reflection and sharing were theological students and young theologians under the age of 40 engaged in research as well as those preparing for service in the church or those already involved in ministry. A wide range of speakers from all over the world aroused a great deal of interest, with contributions offered from a Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic viewpoint, coming from Western and Eastern Europe as well as from Asia, North America, Latin America and Africa.

A special service organized by the WCC at the Ecumenical Centre chapel in Geneva, Switzerland, dedicated prayers to the United Nations post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, meant to eliminate extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice and tackle climate change and water scarcity by 2030.

"Get up and go!" is the motto of an ecumenical pilgrimage for climate justice that will invite pilgrims to walk from Flensburg to Paris, where the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) will start at the end of November.

Affordability of water and sanitation as a human right were deliberated at a side-event during the 30th Session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland.

“Climate changes can only be addressed in a fair and sustainable way if it is proper dynamic between the care for the environment and the need for more justice,” said the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit at an event in Colombia. “Neither in the North nor in the South can the challenges for the globe and the one humanity be seen primarily only from one of these perspectives,” he added.

Interview with the WCC general secretary, who is currently in Brasilia, about violence committed in the name of religion, human rights and climate justice in Brazil.

With just two months before the crucial United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21), an International Divestment Conference was held in Paris, on 1 September, where Rev. Henrik Grape represented the WCC as a key speaker.

As part of the observation of the Time for Creation, Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, has once again sent an encyclical to remind churches and people of good will about the grave risks deriving from growing abuse of energy resources, threatening to increase global warming and the sustainability of the natural environment.

“The effects of climate change today and tomorrow will affect basic human rights,” said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, during an audience with the Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, at the Palacio de la Moneda in Santiago on 29 August.

The World Water Week is a “stepping stone” in accomplishing Sustainable Development Goals related to water and sanitation – and the faith communities must be actively engaged in achieving this vision, according to Dinesh Suna, coordinator of the Ecumenical Water Network of the WCC. Suna shared these reflections following his participation at the 2015 World Water Week Stockholm held in Sweden.