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“We see a lot of challenges, of frustration, anger, but also cases of good practices, of growing Romania together.” Speaking at a workshop on ”Food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture - the Romanian experience and the role of the church” at the German Kirchentag in Berlin on 25 May, ecumenical youth advocate Vicenţiu Dragoş Băşa from the Joint programme of the Romanian Orthodox Church and the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, reflected on the work towards ensuring food security and sustainable agriculture in the Romanian context.

Not nearly enough is being done to save the lives of the 20 million people who face famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria. Among them are 1.4 million children, who are at imminent risk of death unless aid reaches them immediately.

“What is the role of churches in peace-building? How are they actually involved? Which are the ecumenical challenges, and especially which are the ecumenical opportunities that arise from joint efforts at peace building?” These were some of the questions on the table as the Executive of the Joint Working Group of the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church met in Dublin, Ireland on 24-26 April.

He earned the title “Green Patriarch” as a religious leader addressing alarming environmental issues over at least two decades. In 2008, Time Magazine named His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as one of 100 Most Influential People in the World, for “defining environmentalism as spiritual responsibility”.

St Olav’s Way, the long path from Oslo’s old city to Trondheim’s Nidaros Cathedral, was for 500 years crowded with pilgrims, a heavily used popular route until the Reformation. It was restored and re-opened in 1997.

Sitting in a tent at the Souda camp, on the island of Chios in Greece, a Pakistani family of 12 recalls the lives they had in their home country. They had everything except safety. Muhammed and his wife, Asia, along with their 10 children, fled their home country in search of a place where they weren’t constantly fearing for their lives.

The Evangelical Church of Greece has been helping immigrants for more than 20 years, but has grown its effort to unprecedented levels in the past few years, months and even every day.

Following the EU-Turkey refugee agreement, effective 20 March 2016, the Greek islands are again a changed place. Where refugees have arrived in great numbers in the past years, and where they have engaged a whole community of local, national and international aid workers and volunteers, the situation is now dramatically different.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ioannis Amanatidis from Greece met with WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit on 8 April 2016. Amanatidis expressed the Greek government’s warm thanks for the WCC’s cooperation and solidarity with Greece, and requested continued support for Greece’s efforts to face an unprecedented refugee crisis.

World Health Day, 7 April, is focusing this year on diabetes. The World Health Organization has released its first Global Report on Diabetes, which reveals that the number of adults living with diabetes has almost quadrupled since 1980 to 422 million, or 8.5% of the world’s adult population.

Almost forty years after the advent of HIV and AIDS, people around the world living with HIV still endure assaults on their dignity and basic human rights—from stigma and discrimination to denial of legal protection and even medical care.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Athens is caring for the nutritional and clothing needs of refugees and migrants hosted at the identification and registration centre on the Greek island of Samos.

The recent and ongoing flood of migrants and refugees in transit to Europe is testing not only Europe’s physical borders but its legal, security and diplomatic boundaries as well.

A 21 January World Economic Forum session on how food choices can become a catalyst for positive change became an opportunity for World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit to present “Ten Commandments” of food to the gathered business and political leaders.

With simple, compelling messages, leaders and friends of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance are featured in a new five-minute video offering an overview of the EAA’s work and the serious global need for advocacy related to HIV and AIDS and food security.

Azad is a refugee from the north of Aleppo, Syria and is currently in The Jungle camp in Calais, France. “It’s hard here” says Azad, and then falls quiet. “People are hungry, cold, afraid and we can’t do anything”. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of a small shelter.

As he visited vastly different places — Berlin and the island of Samos, a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea — the Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece made a consistent call for more definitive state action on the refugee crisis.

Climate change poses serious environmental challenges to meet current and future demands for food. The poorest communities, having the smallest carbon footprint on the planet, are facing the greatest impact of climate change. For many years, the right to food has been a key issue and priority for many parties, churches and ecumenical delegations involved in climate talks.

International humanitarian and development faith based networks have urged governments preparing for next week's COP21 United Nations climate summit in Paris to do their outmost to reach a fair, binding, and ambitious agreement as vulnerable people continue their daily struggle to adapt to the increasing adverse effects of climate change.

During the 4th United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights, the WCC, in collaboration with the ACT Alliance and Lutheran World Federation, organized a side-event on “Faith-based organizations’ contribution to the protection of communities’ land rights: lessons learnt and good practices from Africa, Asia and Latin America” at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.