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During an ecumenical morning prayer held 15 May, the World Council of Churches (WCC) staff and partners observed the UN International Day of Living Together in Peace, holding in prayer many nations across the world facing challenges to living together in harmony.

World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca extended condolences in the wake of a supertanker explosion and fire in the Matanzas supertanker port in Cuba. Blackouts and toxic fumes were still affecting the area.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) reached out in solidarity and prayer to people and churches in Haiti in the wake of a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti, on 14 August. 

The Haitian government declared a state of emergency, with 1,300 dead and several thousands injured.

In a letter to its European sister organizations, the Council of Churches in the Netherlands reiterated its call to the Dutch government to honour the call from the European Committee regarding the relocation of vulnerable and unaccompanied children from Greek refugee camps. The letter also urges European sister organizations to appeal to their governments to exercise the same human compassion.

As Bishop Theophilus Rolle, living in the Bahamas, shared initial assessments with the World Council of Churches (WCC) in the wake of Hurricane Dorian, the WCC in turn called for prayers and solidarity across the world for the people suffering greatly during the storm.

World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Prof. Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri reflected on the recent Global Consultation on the Decade of the Churches in Solidarity, and what the insights gathered there might mean for the ecumenical movement.

Rev Prof. Dr Ofelia Ortega Suárez is a retired professor of Theology and Gender, and Christian Ethics for the Reformed-Presbyterian Church in Cuba. Ortega Suárez was born in Cuba. After her undergraduate studies in Theology and Christian Education at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Matanzas, she completed her post-graduate studies in Ecumenical Theology at the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. She returned to Cuba and obtained her master's degrees in Divinity and Education.

During an open air common prayer event held in Nelson Mandela Park in Kingston, Jamaica on 4 October, women and men processed and sang, most of them dressed in black as they renewed and expanded their commitment to the Thursdays in Black campaign seeking a world free from rape and violence.

Linette Vassel has been associated with the struggle for women’s rights in the Caribbean since the 1970s. She was the first coordinator of the Committee of Women for Progress, an activist organisation formed in 1976 which was among the pioneering organisations for the struggle for maternity leave with pay for women.

Thirty years ago, the founders of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women were searching for ways to not only help women across the globe seek justice but also highlight their contributions to churches and the world.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit will visit Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Antigua from 29 September-9 October. Tveit will be preaching, meeting with religious leaders and visiting communities.

What have we achieved in building a just community of women and men? What must we still do? How can we strengthen ecumenical collaboration in reading the signs of our times in order to map the future direction of our work?

A trip to Cuba in 2005 with a WCC delegation was undoubtedly a high point of German retired Bishop Rolf Koppe’s ecumenical career.

An international consultation will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women (1988-98), 1-6 October in Kingston, Jamaica.