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Four World Council of Churches (WCC) pre-assemblies are about to convene, drawing hundreds of people eager to, in a safe space, share their honest reflections and life challenges. The pre-assemblies include Indigenous Peoples, Ecumenical Youth Gathering, Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network, and Just Community of Women and Men.

“Persons with disabilities as well as other persons in the community see the church as a pillar of support to their complete wellbeing,” said Anderson Gitonga, executive director of United Disabled Persons of Kenya at a virtual dialogue, held 5 May, on promoting mental wellness of persons with disabilities in Kenya during and beyond COVID-19. “There is need for the church to explore further ways to build communities of support within communities to promote mental wellness of persons with disabilities during COVID-19.”

Persons with disabilities may be even more vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they have also shown resiliency and wisdom that can be shared across the world.

“The church has lots of roles in removing barriers that prevent persons with disabilities from living a fulfilled life. All are created in the image of God and have equal rights. Sexual and reproductive health is one such right that should not be denied to any woman,” said Rev. Evans Onyemara, general secretary of the Christian Council of Nigeria during a training on empowering women with disabilities on sexual and reproductive health care held at Umuahia, Nigeria from 9-11 March.

Twenty church leaders from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania met in Arusha, Tanzania from 7-11 November to discuss deepening inclusion, participation and active involvement of persons with disabilities in the spiritual, social, economic and structural life of the church and society. The forum was organized by the WCC Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network and hosted by the Council of Churches in Tanzania.

The World Council of Churches Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network (WCC-EDAN) will flourish and become a source of increasing education and dialogue, said the programme’s leaders at a meeting in Kenya on 10-15 April.

Some 200 people from Japanese churches and minority right networks as well as overseas partners, gathered for an international conference on minority issues and mission at the Korean YMCA in Tokyo.

A theological dialogue initiative offering Orthodox perspectives on disability has encouraged churches to address the issue with a renewed commitment.

Despite significant steps taken by the Kenyan government, coordinator of the WCC Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network Dr Samuel Kabue says that “more needs to be done” so that people with disability can enjoy their rights.

Meeting from 17 to 24 June, the newly reconstituted Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC has begun to define its principal trajectories for ecumenical study and common activity from 2015 until the next WCC Assembly in 2020.

Members of the WCC's Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network met in the Netherlands to develop a new statement with the working title "Gift of Being: Called to be a Church of All and for All". The new document is founded on the premise that persons with disabilities experience marginalization both in societies and in the church communities themselves.

Reflecting on the theme of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) upcoming assembly in Busan, "€œGod of life, lead us to justice and peace"€, an ecumenical conference in Johannesburg addressed violence against women and children with disabilities.

By Walt Wiltschek (*)

"I have learned to see everyone infected as a brother, a sister, a niece, a nephew - a close relative," said Samuel Kobia this afternoon in Bern. The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary was speaking at an ecumenical event for World AIDS Day held outside the Swiss parliament.