wfn.org | WCC NEWS: First-ever religious leaders' HIV summit

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>World Council of Churches - News

FIRST-EVER SUMMIT OF RELIGIOUS LEADERS ON HIV WITH STRONG WCC

>PRESENCE

>For immediate release: 18 March 2010

The first-ever Summit of High Level Religious Leaders on HIV and

AIDS

will be held in Den Dolder, Netherlands, from 22-23 March 2010.
It aims to
generate greater involvement from religious leaders of many of
the
world’s faiths in the global response to the pandemic.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) will be represented at the
summit by
two of its presidents - Abune Paulos (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=4227 ), patriarch of the
Ethiopian
Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Rev. Dr Ofelia Ortega Suárez
(Link: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=4225 ) of the
Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba - as well as by its
general
secretary, the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=6908 ).

"As religious leaders we have to be just and honest and address
the fact
that a vast majority of those among us affected by HIV and AIDS
belong to
a faith community," Tveit said about his participation. "We have
to
provide leadership to uphold the inherent human dignity of all.
This
meeting should bring us one step further in our ability as
peoples of
faith to address how we relate to one another as men and women
in a just
and compassionate way."

Some 40 Baha’í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and
Sikh
religious leaders will participate at the summit to explore
opportunities
to speak out and take action on HIV in order to eliminate stigma
and
discrimination against people living with HIV.

The religious leaders will also have an opportunity to exchange
views with
people living with HIV and experts from other sectors involved
in the AIDS
response.

The summit is organized by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance
(EAA) - a
broad network of churches and Christian organizations including
the WCC
- along with the Catholic Dutch development organization
Cordaid.

The event is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
UNAIDS,
the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or
Personally
Affected by HIV or AIDS (INERELA+), the World AIDS Campaign and
the
European Council of Religious Leaders (Religions for Peace).

Media contacts:

Sara Speicher  +44-7821-860-723  sspeicher@e-alliance.ch 
Juan Michel  +41-79-507-6363  juan@wcc-coe.org 

More information on the EAA website (Link:

http://www.e-alliance.ch/en/s/hivaids/summit-of-high-level-religious-leaders

>)

>WCC work for an HIV-competent church (Link:
>http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=3418 )

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 Olav Fykse
Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva,
Switzerland.