Search results

Interview with Fr James Oyet-Latansio (JOL), general secretary of the Christian Council in South Sudan and Mr Ferdinand von Habsburg-Lothringen (FHL), advisor on reconciliation, South Sudan Council of Churches

Church leaders in Zimbabwe expressed their concern for their country’s political, social and economic meltdown that has caused increasing civic unrest and violence over the past month.

We are failing our children with HIV care was the stark message of a joint session of the interfaith and Catholic pre-conferences being held in Durban, South Africa in advance of AIDS 2016. Targets for childcare have been missed, medication is not suitable and we still need earlier infant diagnosis with half of infants infected dying within 24 months.

South Sudan is in crisis again. People are suffering. There is no food. The situation is very urgent, according to the latest news from church leaders in South Sudan, says Dr Nigussu Legesse, WCC programme executive for South Sudan.

With increasing violence and growing crowds of people seeking protection, urgent action and support from the ecumenical community is needed in South Sudan as the country teeters on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.

Interview with Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the World Council of Churches Central Committee at the Synod of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg, Germany.

Getting more people tested and treated for HIV, caring for the sick, helping people understand how to care for themselves —these are the tasks of faith-based organizations (FBOs) helping people with HIV in local communities.

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.

Forty years after the Soweto uprising, leaders of churches in conflict-torn countries gathered in South Africa to study the ways of peace and reconciliation.

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.

In 1982, shortly after Dr Sasiprabha Stanley married, she traveled with her husband to Odisha, in eastern India, to a village called Champakenda. “That was the first time I stepped into another state where I did not know the language. I was a foreigner, simply sitting and watching the women.”

How can we begin building peace in an era of religious extremism and acts of terror? Start by reaching out in your own neighborhood, suggests Rev. Arshad Gill, general secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan.

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.

The World Council of Churches – Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (WCC-EAA) welcomes the 25 April announcement by the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and ViiV Healthcare of the geographic extension of their licensing agreement for dolutegravir (DTG) to cover all remaining lower middle-income countries (LMICs). The amendment to the 2014 licence specifically allows generic medicine distribution in four countries with patents – Armenia, Moldova, Morocco and Ukraine – that were not covered in the initial agreement. Dolutegravir is a promising new treatment that was included in the latest WHO guidelines as first- and third-line treatment.

As the El Nino weather pattern challenges southern Africa, what is the role of churches in helping people realize their right to food and livelihood?

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.

“Science and religion can provide solutions to poverty and injustice.” This was the theme of the 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Alternatives for Poverty Reduction and Ecological Justice (SAPREJ) in Kampala, Uganda, on 4-7 April. The conference was organized by the Kyambogo University and the WCC economic and ecological justice programme.

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.

Faith-based organizations presented significant input at a 6 April United Nations civil society hearing in New York City, a prelude to a UN High Level Meeting on HIV in New York on 8-10 June.

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.