We mobilize faith organizations for family health and wellbeing

Given their trusted and strong presence, there is tremendous potential of faith organisations to influence people’s choices on family health and wellbeing. Faith to Action Network mobilizes faith organizations’ support for integration and streamlining of policies, services and funding for family health and wellbeing.

Religion is central to people’s lives. Between 69% and 98% of the population in Africa describes religion as “very important” in their lives” (Pew 2010). Religious beliefs often affect individuals’ behaviours which impact health, including age at marriage, family structure and roles and preventive health practices like strategies couples use to achieve their preferred family size.

Faith organizations represent strong pillars of Africa’s health systems. 30% to 70% of the African health infrastructure is owned by faith organisations. On average, private health providers account for 28 % of the sources of modern contraceptive methods in Africa.

Faith organisations harness tremendous power to shape public policy. High level decision makers’ commitment to family health and wellbeing is strongly influenced by factors such as prevailing cultural and religious attitudes. In many countries, winning the support of faith organisations for SRHR can have a snowball effect in policy and funding arenas.

Faith organizations serve as hubs of social connectivity. In addition to providing care, support and medicines, faith leaders often also provide less tangible assistance, such as information, encouragement, compassion and hope. Faith leaders and centers of religious life very often also serve as hubs of social connectivity. As a result, faith-based leaders can play an important role in strengthening and sustaining communities’ abilities to prevent, protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and recover from incidents with negative health consequences through individual and community resilience.

Faith to Action Network’s better packaging of language and terminologies has increased faith actors’ acceptance of family health and wellbeing. Unfortunately, many misperceptions and misinformation on family health and wellbeing and interpretation of scriptures prevail in religious circles. Faith leaders, staff in faith organizations, teachers in faith-run schools and health workers in faith-run facilities do not always have access to current knowledge and skills. Many faith organizations’ resistance to family health and wellbeing is grounded in inadequate terminology. Language is not adapted to culture, beliefs, ages and education levels of people. Faith to Action Network offers this translation and interpretation expertise.

Faith to Action Network has created spaces to engage in policy discussions at regional level, national and sub-national level. Decision making often happens behind closed doors without meaningful involvement of faith organizations. This hinders ownership and buy-in of policies and creates resistance.

Faith to Action Network has increased faith organizations’ exposure to different faith interpretations, methodologies and approaches on family health and wellbeing, by organizing dialogues and exchanges between faith organizations. Often, lack of exposure to other ideas and approaches leads to closed cultural horizons, standing in the way of self-reflection, innovation, experimenting and change.

Faith to Action Network’s research and demonstration projects generate evidence on faith organizations family health and wellbeing activities. Generally, there is little data on faith organizations’ health services, and even less on the provision of family health and wellbeing services, commodities and information, hampering planning and decision making. Faith-run health facilities report inconsistently into DHIS2. Demographic Health Surveys provide little information or none at all.

Faith to Action Network has brokered partnerships and alliances between unlikely partners – interfaith, intra-faith and with secular organizations. This has increased the voice and impact of faith organizations family health and wellbeing work. Most stakeholders preach to the converted, failing to engage and partner with those holding different ideas. This creates missed opportunities in taking advantage of each others’ strengths.

Faith to Action Network has mobilized faith organizations’ resources for family health and wellbeing. Faith actors represent an untapped funding source for the delivery of family health and wellbeing services. Information from the Ugandan government hints at large contributions to health financing: It notes that the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau provided 12% of the clinical health workforce. 28% was paid by partners (government, donors, religious organizations) and 72% from internally generated resources. Resource mobilization efforts need to target internal resources from faith organisations, and their capacity to fundraise from local communities and governments.

 

Faith to Action Network’s

  • Access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services is critical for young girls and boys. Age-appropriate sexuality education, also referred to as family life education, life skills education, protective health education, among others empower adolescents and youth to take control of their sexual and reproductive health and make informed choices. According to Apostolic …

  • “Customarily in Leparua community, women leave their spouses at home and attend educational forums and seminars where they learn about family planning (FP). They would then refrain from sharing what they learnt with their husbands.” This statement was shared by the men in Leparua community on a recent visit by a member of the Faith …

  • The Masithethe Initiative was a call to engage in inter-generational and interfaith partnership to advance adolescents and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights; and how they are dealt with in the Southern Africa region. Ten institutional partners have been working towards effective youth-led, coordinated responses to support adolescent and young people’s sexual and reproductive …

  • Last week, the faith Community attended the International Conference on Family Planning . This is a global conference attended by the global development community around a shared vision of universal access to family planning since 2009. A network of advocates, researchers and scientists, community and government leaders, health practitioners, economists, conveners, civil society members, and …

  •                                 West Pokot County is located along Kenya’s Western boundary with Uganda and covers an area of approximately 9,169.4 km2. It is mainly inhabited by the Pokot community with the majority ascribing to Christianity as a religion.     According to a …

  • The Solutions for Supporting Healthy Adolescents and Rights Protection (SHARP) program brings together a special collection of organizations, including experts in the fields of adolescence, commerce, gender, SRH, and religion. The Experts have a history of conducting research and advocating for changes in policy that have a positive effect. The project will make use of …

  • Faith leaders and organizations have a significant influence on the norms, attitudes, and beliefs of African society. Faith leaders ought to provide a welcoming environment where young people’s issues about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) are acknowledged in order to better safeguard adolescents from the vices of teenage pregnancies, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), HIV, and …

  • With an emphasis on women, people with disabilities (PWD), and teenagers in hard-to-reach locations, Faith to Action Network and the Marsabit County administration in Kenya have expanded access to family planning and other health services. Marsabit County is a melting pot of different cultures and religious backgrounds, and community members have low awareness and acceptance …

  • Faith to Action Network wishes to share with you our bi-weekly news alerts featuring stories from our network, upcoming events, a case study and job opportunities that might be of interest to you. We hope that the stories we have been sending have been insightful and that you have enjoyed reading the last two pieces …

  • Every year, Faith to Action Network member organizations, partners, friends and allies gather to deliberate and reach consensus on issues they are grappling with. In 2019-2020, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the Network from holding more than one convention that offered a safe space for intra- and inter-faith dialogues so as to encourage mutual learning and …

  • Given their trusted and strong presence, there is tremendous potential for faith organizations to influence people’s choices on family health and wellbeing. However, some faith leaders and institutions do not always feel free to have honest and open discussions with adolescents and youth. In particular, talking about sex, sexuality, and sexual and reproductive health is …

  • This case study uses the bottom-up peacebuilding approach and the concept of everyday peace to assess the impact of interfaith peacebuilding activities in Burundi, which the Conseil Inter-Confessionnel du Burundi (CICB) implemented in Bujumbura Mairie, Bujumbura Rural, Muyinga, and Rumonge provinces. The study assesses the impact by exploring two themes: the transformation of group relations …

  • Southern Africa Faith Leaders Support Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights for All In sub-Saharan Africa it is estimated that 39% of girls are married before their 18th birthday, while 13% are married by their 15th birthday. Early marriage seriously harms the development and wellbeing of girls, through limited education and employment opportunities, social isolation, domestic …

  •                               Faith to Action Network  in collaboration with its founding members, Al-Azhar University’s International Islamic Centre for Population Studies and Research and Cordaid, the Catholic Organization for Relief and Development Aid, developed a facilitator’s guide on Interfaith caravan on family planning …

  •     Who is Ethiopian Interfaith Forum for Development Dialogue and action (EIFDDA)? The Ethiopian Interfaith Forum for Development Dialogue and action (EIFDDA) is an alliance of Faith Based Organizations (FBOs) consisting of the development wings of the main religious institutions operating in the country. EIFDDA brings together FBOs with rich and diverse development experience …

  • On Friday, April 1, 2022, Faith to Action Network Partner, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) organized a dialogue session in commemoration of women’s history month. The dialogue session brought together approximately 50 people comprising of women, men, youth, and children. The session provided an opportunity to discuss and advance rights-based …

  • Religious actors, in their diversity from formal leadership to education and health systems, continue to hold power and presence, and reach spaces where the state and public might not, including as health service providers. Consequently, they are well placed to the whole ICPD Programme of Action, which requires a more nuanced understanding of religion in …

  • Faith to Action Network together with the consortium partners are implementing “Delivering Equitable and Sustainable Increases in Family Planning” (DESIP) project conducted an assessment to identify the key factors that limit the uptake of Family Planning in Marsabit County in Kenya. Interesting analogies emanated from the assessment which measured for both quantitative and qualitative data. …