The World Council of Churches (WCC) General Secretary, Rev Samuel Kobia has addressed the women delegates to the WCC’s historical world Assembly, which will begin today, Feb. 14th, 2006.

|PIC1|The WCC head told the delegates that society, and particularly the roles of men needed to be re-organised as a pre-requisite for meaningful transformation, and especially so that women could be mainstreamed into the Church and society.

The address came as Kobia was attending the WCC pre-Assembly consultation, which took place Feb 10-13th.

Rev Iria Askola, from Finland, who is the Consultation Moderator welcomed the comments by Kobia.

In particular, Kobia stated that in the last century, the change in women’s roles from that of homemakers to working outside the home had had an impact on women and family life, but that this had not yet led to changes in men’s roles.

He said, “The role of men needs to change for the transformation to make sense in this Assembly and beyond.”

Mrs Louse Bakala Komouno, from the Evangelical Church in Congo, Brazzaville explained that there were very few women in Church leadership roles in sub-Saharan Africa, and she urged to help to train women to be able to take up some positions.

|TOP|The Chair of the World Day of Prayer International in Canada, Sylvia Lisk Vanhaverbeke observed that the Holy Spirit had no gender and so the Church needed to be on the leading edge of social transformation, which could come about by setting an example of women becoming visible leaders in faith.

Kobia testified, “Women love the church and are committed to contribute to the renewal of the ecumenical movement” as well as to building links of solidarity between those women divided by a broken and split Church.

The WCC General Secretary proposed alternatives that included supporting economic justice, with emphasis placed on just communities, just relationships and a protective attitude towards the earth.

“It is an economy that is bigger than the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that are sold in markets. This is a model that deserves to be explored as an alternative economic paradigm to the present unjust world economic order,” Kobia said.

In a rousing conclusion, Kobia called for women to stand firm and to continue in their struggle for social transformation, as men in leadership positions would not give up their power easily.