DAVID ADAMS reports…
Faith-based organisations have a “huge role to play” in addressing the Ebola crisis in West Africa, according to the coordinator of the World Health Organization’s campaign against the disease.
Speaking at an event held in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this week which brought together representatives of Christian aid organisations and UN agencies involved in tackling the crisis, Dr Pierre Formenty said the crisis was a situation where “everyone needs to work together: politicians, media, communities, faith organisations”.
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“If one fails everybody will fail…Faith organisations in Africa have a huge role to play.”– Dr Pierre Formenty, coordinator of the World Health Organization’s campaign against Ebola
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“We all have to do something,” he told those at the gathering which was organised by the World Council of Churches. “If one fails everybody will fail…Faith organisations in Africa have a huge role to play.”
More than 3000 people have now died in the outbreak which started in December last year. More than 6,500 people in countries including Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria have so far been infected with the disease with the WHO estimating the number of infected people could top a million by January. The US has confirmed it’s first case this week.
The WCC said participants at the gathering – who included representatives of UNICEF, the ACT Federation, Lutheran World Federation, Caritas Internationalis, and the World Student Christian Federation – stressed the role churches and religious organisations play with their “constant and influential reach to the grassroots populations to offer practical advice about hygiene and safe funeral practices” as well as in addressing the “deeper cultural and religious roots of widespread stigma and discrimination that have accompanied the epidemic”.
These themes were echoed in the comments of Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, who highlighted the role churches and faith-base organisations have to play in addressing issues surrounding stigma, prevention and, given the risks of spreading the disease during burial rituals, “compassionate alternative burial ceremonies and rituals”.
Rev Dr Tveit also spoke of the role churches play in providing psycho-social and pastoral counseling to traumatised family members as well as in supporting over-stretched healthcare providers.
In Liberia a few weeks ago, Dr Gisela Schneider, of the German Institute for Medical Mission, said Christian hospitals are “highly vulnerable” and that people working on the ground need a “great amount of encouragement, training, mentorship and support”. Dr Schneider added that it is “crucial to empower local communities to take care of themselves.”
Meanwhile, a UNICEF official has this week warned that many of the 3,700 children in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone who have lost one of both parents to the virus are being rejected by their surviving relatives over fears of infection.
“These children urgently need special attention and support; yet many of them feel unwanted and even abandoned,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF regional director for west and central Africa.
“Orphans are usually taken in by a member of the extended family, but in some communities, the fear surrounding Ebola is becoming stronger than family ties…Ebola is turning a basic human reaction like comforting a sick child into a potential death sentence. The vast majority of the children affected by Ebola are still left without appropriate care.”
He said a crisis of such a nature and on such a scale could not be responded to in the “usual ways”. “We need more courage, more creativity, and far, far more resources.”
UNICEF has so far only received 25 per cent of the $200 million it has appealed for to provide emergency assistance to families and their children affected by the Ebola outbreak.
And in the US, Dr Rick Sacra, the third US missionary to have had Ebola, will soon be able to head home after he was cleared of the virus, it was reported last weekend. Dr Sacra, who works for SIM, contracted the virus while working in West Africa.
