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World Council of Churches - News Release

Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 25/11/2008 11:33:24

CHURCH ADVOCACY IN ACTION AT THE UNITED NATIONS 

>Free photos available (see below)

After six days of intense discussions on migration, the conflict
in Sri Lanka and climate change, of common prayer and practical
efforts to make the voice of the churches on these issues heard
at the United Nations, the UN Advocacy Week of the World Council
of Churches (WCC) ended with good results on Friday.

“The week was a success because we matched our celebration of
gospel values like justice and care for creation with concrete
action and a demonstration of unity, since there was real
commitment to interregional collaboration,” said Rev.
Christopher Ferguson, who heads the United Nations liaison office
of the WCC which organized the event.

As participants mapped out their follow-up to the week-long
meeting in New York, African Christians pledged for example to
search together with churches in Asia for ways to make their
governments work towards a peaceful solution to the ethnic
conflict in Sri Lanka. 

Similarly, representatives of European networks wanted to engage
more with partners in the Pacific in order to link the islanders'
experiences of climate change with those of the Sami people
indigenous to Scandinavia's northernmost areas.

>Recognizing each other's priorities

It was not self-evident that the 120 representatives of church
networks and organizations working on such specific issues as the
rights of migrant workers, the affirmation of indigenous culture,
youth and gender concerns or climate justice would succeed in
addressing common themes together. 

“Different parts of the church realized the importance of each
other's priorities and discovered the links between those issues.
This is a great achievement,” said Ferguson.

For example an indigenous pastor from Latin America expressed
his readiness to contribute to the accompaniment of migrants and
a Sri Lankan started to think about the need for his church to
pick up on the issue of climate change. The participants also
discovered how exposure to Christian activists from a variety of
backgrounds could inspire them in their ongoing work.

For instance, Dr Maake Masango, a professor at the University of
Pretoria in South Africa, said that he wanted to use information
shared by indigenous participants from Ecuador on the rights of
nature in their country's constitution as material for a
theological curriculum on climate change.

So the advocacy week met the criteria for true ecumenism
outlined by Rev. Dr Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the
National Council of Churches USA, in his opening address:
“Christians advocating for justice without an understanding
how this deepens our fellowship are not truly ecumenical; neither
are Christians who pursue eucharistic fellowship without deep
concern how it deepens our involvement with the world.”

>Reaching out to the United Nations

The discussions on how to make the voice of the church heard
were put into practise at several occasions of direct interaction
with people working for, or representing their governments at,
the United Nations. 

The visits to missions of UN member states, during which
participants promoted the International Migration Convention,
exemplified the importance and the limitations of church advocacy
at the UN. One representative of a country that experiences both
emigration and immigration on a larger scale said he would
welcome the church standing up for a signing of the convention,
which protects the rights of migrant workers. With xenophobia
increasing in the population, his government would not achieve
this step without a push from civil society and church
organizations.

Dr Robert C. Orr, the United Nations assistant secretary-general
for strategic planning and policy coordination stroke a similar
note in his keynote address, which marked the end of the advocacy
week: “In times of crisis, people tend to look inward, and seek
to protect their own families and communities. You need to help
people fight this instinct, because we can only cope with this
crisis if we look outward and all work together.”

More on the United Nations Advocacy Week of the WCC:
http://unaw.oikoumene.org

Full text of Rev. Dr Michael Kinnamon's address
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=6435

High resolution photos of the United Nations Advocacy Week are
available upon request.

Additional information: 

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

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from
the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.