Seventeen Visitors at the Ecumenical Table
Against the backdrop of a crowded diplomatic September in Geneva, a quieter exchange played out inside the World Council of Churches. On 4 September 2026, seventeen fellows and representatives of the International Geneva Peace Fellowship Programme came through the council’s doors as part of a community-building initiative, among them Wendyam Hervé Lankoandé, a fellow who will be working inside the WCC itself. The photograph of the visit, credited to Pauline Tête, shows the group gathered for what became a day of introductions and argument in the best sense.
A Courtesy Visit, and More
Lankoandé explained that the stop at the WCC belonged to a series of visits the fellows have been making since the programme kicked off on 1 September. “It was a courtesy and learning visit in the sense that as a cohort we were impressed and exposed to WCC’s insightful programmatic work including in peacebuilding across different jurisdictions in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Europe”, he said. He reflected that the council holds to the concept of “just peace”, an idea with Christian roots, and he carries a concrete assignment: contributing to the establishment of an Ecumenical Just Peace Network in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For him, “building resilient societies is all about the pursuit of just peace”, and he added: “I am proud to see WCC fully embodying this prophetic voice.”
Faith at the Centre of the Work
Fellow Minsa Salime, whose work touches women, peace and security, is posted this year at Interpeace. She offered the most disarming admission of the day: after two years living in Geneva, she had never really heard of the World Council of Churches until this visit. “I was very interested to see how faith is at the centre of their work and how present they are in different parts of the world, and how they cover a wide range of topics, from health, to climate, to children, to women and men, to gender parity”, she said. She came away struck by how engaged the WCC staff were in their own work, and with new questions in hand. “For me, it was interesting to see how faith can contribute to peacebuilding, so I have further food for thought and I’m very happy about it”, Salime said.
From a Southern Baptist Household to Geneva
Nathan Thomas framed the goal plainly: to arrive in international Geneva, contribute to peacebuilding in different fields and learn from the organisations based there. “This programme allows us to see different organisations and help to cross the divides”, he said. Raised in a Southern Baptist household in a highly religious part of the United States, Thomas said the visit showed him work his own church was doing in the wider world, from fighting racial discrimination and disinformation around vaccines and climate change to campaigning for peace and against environmental degradation, initiatives he said he had not seen while growing up.
The Programme Behind the Visit
The fellowship itself is a partnership joining Interpeace with the Geneva Graduate Institute, supported by the “Foundation for the Adaptation of International Geneva”, and it aims to raise a next generation of leadership for peace and humanitarian diplomacy. The seventeen fellows will spend this year working across different organizations in international Geneva, after a visit day that ran from an introduction to the council to a discussion of its work led by a panel of WCC staff.
