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Church leaders in South Africa and Zimbabwe are participating in online workshops on “Churches and Child Safeguarding” on 3 and 5 August. Part of the World Council of Churches (WCC) partnership program with UNICEF, “Churches’ Commitments to Children,” the workshops are designed to nurture churches where children feel welcome and safe.

Rev. Zenda Chipaka, the first deaf pastor of the Reformed Church in Zimbabwe, through a sign language interpreter shared reflections on the importance of listening to advice in her devotion during the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) 8th Biennial General Assembly. The assembly was held 28-29 August.

The World Council of Churches, Lutheran World Federation, World Communion of Reformed Churches and Methodist World Council sent a letter to the churches and people of Zimbabwe expressing solidarity with the nation in its difficult quest for human rights and justice.

Victoria Falls is known locally as Mosi-oa Tunya ("The Smoke that Thunders") due to the power of the water from the Zambezi River that often flows across one of the great wonders of the world. Today it is a mere trickle.

For Marijke van Duin it was culture shock on two levels: being in sub-Saharan Africa, attending a huge international conference. Both for the first time. The Dutch Mennonite experienced confrontation, transformation and hope at the WCC 8th Assembly in Harare…and made a friendship that transcended borders.

In a press statement on 27 September, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) called for government officials to offer adequate information in order to ensure peace and justice in the face of panic buying of fuel and basic food items.

Friday morning a delegation of church leaders led by World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit was received on a courtesy visit in Harare by Zimbabwe vice president Hon. Emmersom Mnangagwa and government officials.

We have come a long way but have made little progress, stated Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, in his message to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), referring to 22 years of UN conventions as an unacceptably long period to respond to the environmental crisis.

A lively and youthful, but demanding, voice of the faith groups was heard clearly in the streets of Marrakech last Sunday, where a joint group from the ACT Alliance, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches (WCC) marched among several thousand activists to demand environmental justice during the United Nations (UN) climate conference COP22.

“Ecumenical solidarity will be the key for Zimbabwe as we move into this latest phase — a kairos moment— when Zimbabwe will need the support of the whole ecumenical movement.” These are the words of Rev. Dr Kenneth Mtata, study secretary for Lutheran theology and practice at the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva since 2010. He has also recently been appointed general secretary of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches.

“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 first of what will be 1,000 refugees from camps in Lebanon, Morocco and Ethiopia are arriving this month in Italy through a “Humanitarian Corridors” project organized by the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy, the Sant’ Egidio religious community and the Italian government.

When a WCC meeting on ecumenical HIV and AIDS response concluded last week in Limuru, Kenya, its message to the global HIV and AIDS community was terse: traditional ways of tackling the pandemic have failed.