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From 18-20 September, the World Council of Churches (WCC) is hosting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a regional meeting of some 30 people with responsibilities for ecumenical relations in several churches in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean.

One of the most active groups of "La Casona", a care center in the southern part of Buenos Aires, is the “Centro de Producción Audiovisual”, which is formed by eight young people of ages 16-22 who found in the cinema and audiovisual production a tool to express their feelings about the challenging reality around them. Last August, they received a visit by a group led by Frederique Seidel, World Council of Churches (WCC) special adviser on Child Rights.

Move through the lobby of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, and you will “walk” with some 90 faces, the people who tell, at least in part, the story of the World Council of Churches (WCC) over 70 years. On large panels, an exhibition of photos and phrases features people who have, in diverse ways, helped form the many facets of the WCC and the ecumenical movement.

Churches, civil society organisations and almost 100 children and adolescents - many of whom experience poverty and violence daily - attended a consultation on 11 August organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in the town of Pilar, north of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stressed that zero carbon emissions must be achieved by 2050 by the world if we are to avoid catastrophic climate impacts such severe and recurrent droughts, record-breaking storms as well as the inundation of small island states and coastal cities.

In writing a story for the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Elias Crisóstomo Abramides of Argentina, from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is writing the story of his life. His service at the WCC opened for him the gate to meeting and loving “the very good Creation of God”: love, respect and admiration for the life of his neighbours and for all creation.

Between 17–18 May, representatives of several religious denominations, theologians, economists, and experts in development and ecumenism gathered in São Paulo, Brazil, for the 3rd Dialogue on Ethics and Economics. They aim to build a common message to G20 leaders who will meet in Argentina later this year.

Under the auspices of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, an international forum on modern slavery convened in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 5-8 May. This forum, the second of kits kind, was entitled “Old Problems in the New World,” and was cosponsored by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Buenos Aires and South America, and the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute based in Berkeley, California, USA.

“The truth we are all sharing with the world is a living truth coming out of the life of people, it is not a dead dogma”, said Prof. Dr Dimitra Koukoura, from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, during a panel held at the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME).

From 15-20 September, about 40 Ecumenical Officers of member churches from all over the world spent four days discussing and sharing common issues at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey and the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.

"Since 1983 Argentina is enjoying the longest period of democracy in our history – it is a great achievement and that is why we need to take care of it." Pride in the peaceful change from military dictatorship to democracy 35 years ago and concern over recent developments in her country was the message that Estela Barnes de Carlotto brought with her to a meeting in Geneva reinvigorating the friendship between the WCC and the Association of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, of which she is the president.

Some 40 participants, coming mainly from Latin American countries, attended a consultation promoted by the WCC entitled “Together Towards Life: Mission in the 21st Century”, from 30 April – 4 May, in Rosario, Argentina.

“WCC notes the concern expressed by Movimiento Ecuménico por los Derechos Humanos (MEDH) and many other civil society organizations in Argentina that Milagro Sala, a prominent political activist, social and indigenous leader, is being arbitrarily detained because of her activism, though other charges are laid against her”, wrote Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), in a letter on 16 December, to the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA), in support of MEDH in its claim regarding Sala.