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Communiqué issued on 27 April, where the group stresses that migration and peace-building in situations of violence are the two burning issues that the JWG wants to address more specifically during its present mandate.

Remarks by WCC Associate General Secretary Prof. Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri, welcoming His Holiness Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, 24 April 2017

Address of H.A.H. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, at the World Council of Churches

Abram’s journey in Genesis 12 as a response to God’s guidance becomes a pilgrimage of blessings. The unnamed destination of his pilgrimage is encountering people and their land. Abram will become a a kind of “platform” of blessings among other peoples and nations, rather than an exemplar of the exercise of power and control over those peoples and their land. As God commissioned Abram to go forth as a source of blessings, God calls us to go in the pilgrimage of blessings.

The final reflection of the Lenten Campaign: Seven Weeks for Water 2017 of the Word Council of Churches’ (WCC) Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) is by Prof. Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri.  Dr Phiri is the deputy general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and responsible for WCC’s work on Public Witness and Diakonia. A Malawian by nationality, Apawo Phiri was a professor of African theology, dean and head of the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, and director of the Centre for Constructive Theology at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.  In this reflection she explains the concept of a ‘blue community’ and points out why the bottled water industry is an impediment to the human right to water. She then takes us through the journey of the WCC into becoming a blue community through one of its ecumenical initiatives, the EWN.

The 4th reflection of the Lenten Campaign: Seven Weeks for Water 2017 of the Word Council of Churches’ (WCC) Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) is by Prof. Jesse N.K. Mugambi, PhD, FKNAS, EBS. Prof. Mugambi teaches at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. He is also a Member of the Working Group on Climate Change and is an active member of the WCC’s Ecumenical Water Network. In the following reflection, he meditates on the theme of the World Water Day 2017: “Wastewater”. He asks, “why waste water?” Then he goes on to reflect on the African context: how we can reduce, reuse and recycle fresh water for our consumption. A frugal lifestyle when it comes to water use is the way to go for Prof.  Mugambi.

The 3rd reflection of the Lenten Campaign: Seven Weeks for Water 2017 of the Word Council of Churches’ (WCC) Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) is by Rev. O. Kolade Fadahunsi. Rev. Kolade is the Executive Director of Nigeria’s Kairos Foundation. He is also the programme associate for the national food security project of the Christian Council of Nigeria.  In the following reflection he underlines the inter-dependency of water and food security, given that 70 per cent of fresh water is used for food production and one third of food produced goes to waste.

The second of the seven reflections of the Lenten Campaign: Seven Weeks for Water 2017 of the Word Council of Churches’ (WCC) Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) is by Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the WCC’s Central Committee. 

Dr Abuom is the first woman and first African to hold this important position. She is also the Executive Director of TAABCO Research and Development Consultants, based in Nairobi, Kenya. In her reflection, being an African woman on the eve of International Women’s Day, she explores the linkages between poverty, water scarcity and its impact on women.  It is also contextual in that today Kenya is reeling under a serious drought which is deteriorating the situation for women as they are mostly responsible for fetching water for their families.

Opening service of Lenten campaign “Seven Weeks for Water”

1 March 2017, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Sermon by the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches

Sermon by the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches at the Opening service of Lenten campaign “Seven Weeks for Water” on 1 March 2017 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia