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“Love heals. It never hurts.” That’s just one of many messages—accompanied by beautiful images—shared by the World Council of Churches (WCC) Thursdays in Black campaign just in time for Valentine’s Day. 

The Thursdays in Black campaign now has a Youth Edition, developed by young people who are building a network in support of a world free from rape and violence. 

A workshop being held 11-14 December is engaging young church leaders in preventing gender inequities and advocating for gender justice in social media and other online spaces. 

From sports to rocket science, from art to family relationships, young people at a webinar on 16 March spoke out on why they want and need safe, accessible technology to realize their dreams.

The speakers, ages 7-17, were young women and men who clearly articulated their aspirations, and also communicated what the adults in their lives need to provide not just in the future—but right now.

The 67th Commission on the Status of Women will take place on 6-17 March in New York City and online. The World Council of Churches (WCC) is involved in online side events scheduled for 9, 14, and 16 March. 

The webinar “Rooting out gender cyberviolence: An introduction to social media monitoring” on 8 December will give WCC member churches and partners the opportunity to take action against the harmful—and growing—phenomenon of online gender-based violence.

As the global campaign “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence” kicks off on 25 November, the World Council of Churches (WCC), Lutheran World Federation, and other ecumenical partners are calling on us all to “UNITE! Act to End Violence Against Women and Girls.”

In a joint message on gender-based violence, sexual abuse, and faith communities, 26 World Council of Churches (WCC) Thursdays in Black ambassadors lament that the scourge of sexual and gender-based violence continues unabated—and call on faith communities to prevent such violence in their own spaces.

A roundtable hosted by the World Council of Churches and the World Association for Christian Communication released a message on 8 March that addresses the role of media in a world striving for gender equality.

A compilation of the most-read stories published by the World Council of Churches (WCC) reveals a global fellowship focused on a better future even amid the grave challenges the world faced during 2021.

At an event called “Ecumenical Continuing Formation: Youth, Transformative Masculinity 

and Femininity,” young people from the Pacific gathered from 15-19 November, both online and in-person, to express their honest feelings about the issues most important to them.

 

Christian educators and other church leaders in Togo are eagerly turning the pages of a new resource for children, a curriculum entitled “Because God Loves Me—Affirming My Value in Christ,” published by the World Council of Churches (WCC).

It will take at least 67 more years to close the average gender equality gap in traditional news media worldwide, shows the 6th Global Media Monitoring Project, the largest research and advocacy initiative in the world on gender equality in news and journalism.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Thursdays in Black campaign has created new “virtual backgrounds” to help people raise awareness about gender-based violence.

The film “Radio Silence,” by Juliana Fanjul, has received the Human Rights Award 2020 from the World Association for Christian Communication and SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication.

The feature-length documentary portrays government-critical journalist and radio host Carmen Arestigui. 

 

Faith-based health services play a critical role in many countries in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization head Dr Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, has said in support of a World Council of Churches (WCC) led Week of Prayer on the pandemic.

The 15 March webinar provided information on the pandemic's current status and related issues and presented an introduction and overview of the ecumenical Week of Prayer from 22-27 March.

In a statement on International Women’s Day, 8 March, Christian Conference of Asia general secretary Dr Mathews George Chunakara reflected on “Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World.”

Preliminary findings released by the Global Media Monitoring Project show significant progress toward some aspects of gender balance in the news but also show that, overall, the media is far short of being an inclusive space for women, vulnerable women, and historically marginalized groups.

As “16 Days Against Gender-Based Violence” drew to a close, churches around the world expressed their prayerful determination to keep carrying the message past 16 days, into the coming new year and beyond.