CLWR News & Events

On a recent program visit to Colombia, Program Manager Linnet Damien saw the impact of your support for CLWR.

In December, 2025 CLWR’s Refugee Resettlement team held a winter celebration in Vancouver, BC. At the event Shakila Bahrami, a refugee from Afghanistan who was resettled to Canada with support from CLWR, shared this inspiring message on the power of refugee resettlement to change lives. Thank you for giving me the honour to stand here […]

Ebla Aden Ahmed fled her home in Jilib, Somalia, with her four children when life there became unbearable. “We lived in constant fear. Armed clashes were happening close to our home, and I worried every day about my children’s safety,” Ebla said. “I left my farm, my house and everything I worked for. All I wanted […]

When Gloria Montañez Rodríguez speaks about protecting women from gender-based violence, she speaks from a lifetime of knowing what happens when it is absent.  The 62-year-old lives in Caño Claro, an Indigenous community in Colombia near the Venezuelan border – an area shaped by generations of armed conflict. As a child, Gloria’s sister was killed at 15, and […]

Over the past year, your generosity helped families affected by conflict, climate disasters and displacement. From emergency food and clean water to sustainable livelihoods and welcoming refugees in Canada, these were the impacts we achieved together in 2025. You did not just give. You stood with people when it mattered most. Thank you for being […]

“When I was six, we had a visiting missionary from Cameroon. I went to the presentation, came home, and announced I was going to be a missionary in Africa,” says Gayle Moore-Morrans (formerly Johannesson).  Nearly 50 years later, Gayle found herself on a mission. Not in Africa, but in India. In 2000, she and 17 […]

PANYAGOR, South Sudan – When floods swept through Lith Payam in 2022, 57-year-old Amam Kuir Angok lost nearly everything, her livestock, her household goods and the farmland that had sustained her family for years.  Three years ago, her husband and his second wife relocated to an Internally Displaced Persons camp in Lake State, these camps […]

Feeding a family of six on a single income is a daily struggle for 60-year-old Akoi Riak Akech, who lives in Kongor Payam, South Sudan. Two years ago, he lost his wife to illness, leaving him to care alone for five sons and one daughter. “Since I lost my wife, I am struggling to manage […]

Winnipeg — September 22, 2025 — Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR) welcomes Canada’s formal recognition of the state of Palestine, aligning with a broad international consensus on a solution based on international law and human dignity.  Canada’s announcement builds on decades of partnership with Palestinians, exemplified by its longstanding support for CLWR’s work for human […]

“We had to flee or end up in a concentration camp,” says John Weingartner.  Born in 1936, in what was then Yugoslavia, now Croatia, John was just a child when war forced his family to leave everything behind. Alongside his parents and three siblings, he fled to Austria, where they lived in limbo for nine […]

WATERLOO, Canada – On four quiet Sundays in June, the congregation at Christ Lutheran Church in Waterloo turned their attention to the disappearing waters of Lake Chad. Once one of Africa’s largest lakes, Lake Chad is now a symbol of the climate crisis affecting millions. And Christ Lutheran’s congregation is part of a growing movement […]

It was the mid 1980’s and there was famine in Mozambique. CLWR sponsored and advertised an appeal where one cow became four. At that time there was a young teenager at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Owen Sound, ON, who was captivated by this idea of one becoming 4. Brilliant! I was that teenager. It […]

In Logone Birni, Cameroon, the land has always sustained life—but in recent decades, it has also become a source of conflict. As weather patterns shift, rain becomes unpredictable, and floods and droughts grow more common, the natural resources that people rely on—land, water, grazing areas—have grown scarcer. This has led to rising tensions between farmers […]

Amina, a single mother of six, lives in the 9th district of Chad, where life has not been easy. Years ago, her husband left the family, and Amina has carried the full responsibility of raising her children ever since. In 2022, things got even harder when a devastating flood destroyed her home, forcing her to […]

In the rural town of Logone Birni, Cameroon, Ache is both a farmer and a leader. As president of her agricultural group and a member of the local Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA), she’s helping her community grow—not just crops, but opportunity. Ache’s farming group—made up mostly of women, along with a few men—is […]

In the village of Mandalia, Chad, farmer Yamadji Nanadoum Nuba is adapting to a changing climate—one tomato at a time. Nuba grows onions, tomatoes, and other vegetables on land that had become difficult to farm after many years of intense use. Like many others in the Lake Chad Basin, he used to rely on purchased fertilizers. But […]

Since 2016, the Deo Lutheran Church in Salmon Arm, BC, together with other churches, community groups, and individuals, have sponsored many Syrian refugees to Canada. “We knew we couldn’t sponsor refugees on our own,” said Erik Bjorgan, pastor of Deo Lutheran, which had a pre-pandemic attendance of 50-60 people. So they decided to call a […]

Bekelech Cheru, 40, knows loss like few others. In the violence that ravaged her community in the Ephrata Gideim Woreda of Ethiopia’s Amhara region, she lost her son, husband, and brother. With nothing left but her children—Daniel, Kidist, and Habtamu—and her elderly mother, Emeyu Zerga, Bekelech faced a harsh reality. The conflict not only stripped […]

The conflict in Ukraine has shattered the lives of millions, forcing many to leave their homes and seek safety in other parts of Ukraine or in neighbouring countries. While adults can understand what’s happening, the trauma is even worse for children, whose lives have been turned upside down in a matter of hours. Barbara Körozsi, […]

Alanyo Jennifer’s hands moved with steady precision, weaving a neat braid into the young woman’s hair. Around her, a circle of women and girls watched intently, their eyes fixed on her movements. Their murmurs filled the Palabek Gem Women Safe Space created by CLWR partner LWF Uganda, a place where they could breathe, find safety, […]

The Board of Canadian Lutheran World Relief announces the departure of our CEO, Karin Achtelstetter. We wish her well in her future endeavours. We are also happy to announce the hiring of Rev. Dr. Michael Pryse, who will be joining the organization as the Interim Executive Director. In October 2024, Michael retired after serving 26 […]

With your generous support, CLWR is bringing hope and relief to vulnerable communities around the world facing crises.

We’ve designed an initiative called Nature-Based Solutions which will be carried out alongside thousands of local farmers as we restore land, reforest, push adoption of sustainable farming and water management practices, and include voices that have been left out. 

With your support, our partners in South Sudan provided cash assistance and fishing kits to those whose land was flooded in order to help them adapt to the drastically altered landscape.