wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Student leaders getting ready for the Assembly

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 12/09/2005

ECUMENICAL STUDENT LEADERS GETTING READY FOR WCC ASSEMBLY

Free photos available, see below

Next February, twenty-six young leaders from the World Student Christian
Federation (WSCF) will come together in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to offer
their experiences and challenges to the wider ecumenical movement.

The WSCF Executive Committee will have its annual meeting immediately
before the World Council of Churches (WCC) 9th Assembly in order to allow
its members to participate in the ecumenical summit. The WSCF, founded in
1895, is a community of over 100 student organizations from over 90
countries, with a membership that amounts to more than half a million
students.

"As one of the oldest ecumenical youth and student organizations, we aim
to fully participate in a WCC Assembly that wants to be very open to
youth, offering the contribution of empowered Christian students who are
schooled and practised in ecumenism," says WSCF vice-chair, Ms Adèle
Djomo Ngomedje, from the Movement of Protestant Students in Cameroon.

WSCF general secretary Michael Wallace looks forward to the chance for
WSCF to actively contribute to the new vision for ecumenism in the
twenty-first century: "The great thing about youth involved in Student
Christian Movements is that they come to ecumenical gatherings as
experienced ecumenists, who have considered critically what it means be a
Christian today with all its theological and political implications."

Wallace believes that the time is right to showcase today's student
ecumenical movement: "This WCC Assembly is a golden opportunity for WSCF
to re-engage with the wider ecumenical family and for the ecumenical
family to re-engage with WSCF."

Current WSCF themes fit well with the Assembly's own agenda, calling on
students to question the global order and search for just alternatives.
Young WSCF leaders will bring their insights from study and dialogue on
the themes of women, empire, migration and "Students in the 21st century".
WSCF will offer four workshops on these themes at the Assembly Mutirão.

WSCF members will also be there to support the practical life of the
Assembly. Students and student leaders will lead worship and music,
facilitate discussion sessions and take an active part in ecumenical
conversations.

The WSCF Executive Committee is made up of the officers and staff of the
global federation of Student Christian Movements. Also forming the
committee are representatives from the six WSCF regions: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and Caribbean, Middle East, and North America.

Free high resolution photos are available at the WCC Assembly website:
www.wcc-assembly.info

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org

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The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 347, in
more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.