Significant and far-reaching changes were made by the Central Committee of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) at a meeting held 1-6 October 2005 near the East Sussex town of Brighton.

The former Central Committee, WACC’s governing body, will be replaced by a Board of Directors comprising its President, Treasurer, General Secretary and 16 elected representatives from its eight regions.

The new Board of Directors approved the theme of ‘Communication for peace and social justice’ for WACC’s next international Congress. To be held in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2008, Congress is an opportunity for WACC members and partners in social movements around the world to debate current concerns and priorities.

In a historic decision the Board of Directors also opted to relocate the global office of WACC from London (United Kingdom) to Toronto (Canada). WACC has been in the UK since its foundation in 1968. The move will lead to significant reductions in administrative overheads freeing up more funds for WACC’s communication priorities.

In elections the Central Committee named Mrs Dr Musimbi Kanyoro (Kenya) as President and Piet Halma (Netherlands) as Vice-President, both re-elected for a second three-year term. The Rev. Cheon Young-Cheol (Korea) was elected as Treasurer and Amany Latif (Egypt) as Secretary.

WACC’s programme priorities in the next two years, among others, will include ‘Christian fundamentalism and the media’, ‘Media and gender justice’, ‘Communication for peace and social justice’, and ‘HIV/Aids and stigma in communication’.

As an ecumenical roof organisation, WACC promotes communication for social change. It believes that communication is a basic human right that defines people’s common humanity, strengthens cultures, enables participation, creates community, and challenges tyranny and oppression. WACC’s key concerns are media diversity, equal and affordable access to communication and knowledge, media and gender justice, and the relationship between communication and power. It tackles these through advocacy, education, training, and the creation and sharing of knowledge. WACC’s worldwide membership works with faith-based and secular partners at grassroots, regional and global levels, giving preference to the needs of the poor, marginalised and dispossessed.

The Communication department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists as well as the Editor-in-chief of Adventist Press Service (APD) are longstanding WACC corporate respectively personal members.