The World Council of Churches is now a blue community!
Blue Planet Project founder Maude Barlow presented a blue community certificate to the World Council of Churches at a ceremony in Geneva earlier today.
This morning Barlow tweeted:
– The World Council of Churches in Geneva is going bottled water free and installed this public water system.
A ‘blue community’ is a community that adopts a framework that recognizes water as a human right, opposes bottled water, and promotes publicly financed, owned and operated water and wastewater services.
The World Council of Churches had previously noted, “Maude Barlow will deliver the keynote address, award the World Council of Churches a ‘blue community certificate’ and inaugurate tap water-based public water fountains at the Ecumenical Centre.” The programme will also feature the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit, voices from Swiss Reformed churches, and “a special song on water with children’s enactment”.
With respect to the children’s enactment, Barlow tweeted:
– Kids against bottled water at the World Council of Churches in Geneva!
– Kids are angry at adults who strew water bottles around!
– The kids put away bottled water!
The World Council of Churches is a worldwide fellowship of 349 global, regional and sub-regional, national and local churches. The fellowship includes denominations collectively representing a Christian population of some 590 million people in nearly 150 countries in all regions of the world.
A blue community can be a city. In March 2011, Burnaby, British Columbia became the first blue community in Canada. Bern, Switzerland became the first international blue community in September 2013. Blue communities can also be religious groupings, universities, First Nations, or unions. The Evangelisch-reformierte Kirchgemeinde Bern-Johannes Church became a blue community in November 2013, as did the University of Bern in November 2013, Tsal’alh, St’át’imc Territory in January 2015, and the Swiss public service workers union VPOD in November 2015.
For more on the Blue Planet Project’s Blue Communities Project, please click here.
