Mr Dinesh Suna is the Coordinator of the Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) at World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva since 2012. He advocates for water justice issues at the WCC. He has worked with several ecumenical organizations in his home country in India since the 1990s. Currently he is one of the Co-leads of the PaRD (Partnership of Religions and Sustainable Development) workstream on “Environment, Water and Climate Action” (WeCARE) and a founding member of the People’s Water Forum. He also represents WCC at the WSF International Council of the World Social Forum. Mr Suna has a master’s degree in Social Work, among other professional degrees and certificates.
As someone who is engaged with water issues for about 2 decades now, I am fully committed to the principles of the Blue Communities. Much before the concept of Blue Communities emerged, the Ecumenical Water Network of the World Council of Churches (WCC) believed that water is a gift of God, a common good and a fundamental human right. Based on these principles, the churches in Switzerland and Brazil issued a statement called “Water of Life” in 2005. That statement paved the way to form the Ecumenical Water Network (EWN). The WCC in 2006 at its highest governing body, called the General Assembly, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, adopted another statement called “Water for Life”, which resulted in the Ecumenical Water Network to be a Programme for the WCC. Since 2016, the WCC, a global fellowship of churches, representing over half a billion Christians (Protestants and Orthodox), present in 120 countries, has been a Blue Community. Thereby, potentially all its members are a blue community. The WCC EWN is fully committed to spread the notion of blue communities and encourage hundreds of thousands of its related churches and Faith Based Organisations to become blue communities. We are strongly committed to “Water for Life, over water for Profit”. Let us all become blue communities.