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For WCC Central Committee member Sonia Tziovanni, youth employment is an issue of the times at her home in Cyprus and everywhere on the planet.

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.

A new generation of ecumenical Christians has engaged preeminent issues of contemporary global Christianity in a new publication from Globethics.

This Christmas the St Luke Clinic in Tirana has come of age. Twenty-one years after it was founded it offers specialized medical assistance in an array of medical fields and its founding was the foundation of expanded church-run medical services in Albania.

“Disability does not mean inability! Human rights for all! Equality and access to good health care! Leave no one behind!” Slogans were plentiful at the 18th International Conference on AIDS and STIs. Some participants felt that the conference venue sadly belied these clarion calls as it was ill-equipped to handle the mobility and access needs of persons with disabilities.

When 505 percent more girls than boys get infected with HIV, the virus that is in its fourth decade can, indeed, be said to wear a woman’s face.

“Stigma, discrimination, lack of access to information and appropriate prevention measures aggravate the spread of HIV and AIDS,” says Samuel Matsikure, who participated in a dialogue sponsored by Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy of the WCC.

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.

Adebayo Anthony Kehinde leads an African group supporting ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Its interfaith campaign is especially significant on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings in Japan.

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.

Participants in the 2015 Agape International Political Camp have explored the concept of security and issued a call for a “pedagogy of and for peace” founded on justice.

In Taizé, the week-long Gathering for a New Solidarity, for solidarity with the poor and excluded, reached its climax on the weekend of 15-16 August. The ecumenical community is celebrating in 2015 the seventy-fifth anniversary of its foundation by Roger Schutz, as well as the one hundredth anniversary of his birth (on 12 August 1915). Also 16 August was the tenth anniversary of his death.

A message focusing on the theme “Ora et labora”, meaning “pray and work”, was shared by the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, at the 75th anniversary of the Taizé Community, commemorating the life of the community’s founder Brother Roger.

Young participants in a WCC interfaith summer course representing Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions hope to make a strong contribution towards dialogue in their home countries. Dialogue can break down stereotypes and build up peaceful communities, they say.

A WCC ecumenical training programme recently held in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, prepared 30 young Congolese to be peace-builders amidst the reality of conflict and the backdrop of upcoming elections in the country.

A new initiative titled Ecumenical Institute for the Middle East is “promising and inspiring” in its attempt to train young Christians in ecumenical thought and history, according to Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC.

Representatives from the WCC offered significant input at a Global Conference on Religion and Sustainable Development held in Washington, D.C.

Prayers and action undertaken by the Liberian Council of Churches during the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2015 will be honoured by the Liberian government with distinction of “Commander, Order of the Star of Africa”.

A WCC group concluded a three-day meeting by acknowledging achievements that have been made in addressing HIV and AIDS.

A new report titled “Defeating AIDS–Advancing global health” was appreciated as a significant resource in encouraging an effective global AIDS response by Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri, associate general secretary of the WCC.