The unsung heroes of the Ebola response

Freetown’s Archbishop Edward Thamba Charles led a meeting in Parliament this week, and he explained to MPs and peers about the way faith leaders had engaged with the Ebola crisis.

In the early stages of the Ebola outbreak, once the international community got going with their response, faith leaders were not consulted. The first government “lock downs” – health workers going house to house in search of the dead and dying – took place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, affecting the Mosques and Friday prayers, the Adventists on Saturday and Christians on Sunday. 

Most public gatherings were banned, and places of worship were some of the few locations where people could receive vital information about the Ebola outbreak. Priests would use the pulpit and their homilies to deliver vital public health messages. He also explained that the authority of faith leaders allowed them to dispel the myths and suspicions that were rife in communities about how the disease is transmitted. Archbishop Charles told the meeting that churches and mosques set up hand-washing stations so that it was clear to their communities that they were leading by example.

Today there are reports of declining number of cases, but there are still spikes in the numbers of infections, which can go from three new cases to 21 new cases in the space of a couple of days. The archbishop told the Parliamentarians that Ebola is not finished; it still needs to be on everyone’s radar.

Part of the fallout of Ebola is the stigmatisation of those who have been diagnosed with it. But just as faith leaders have challenged the stigmatisation around HIV, they are doing the same with Ebola. The archbishop said those who have survived the virus sometimes find it difficult to be accepted back into their communities. He has proposed the establishment of survivor support networks within communities, and says church leaders also have a duty to preach about acceptance.

The Inter-Religious Council of Sierra Leone (IRCS), of which Archbishop Charles is a member, has worked hard to make sure that their representatives sit around the table at governmental and at international level so as to contribute to discussions on next steps to tackling Ebola. He is aware that when the country reaches the milestone of having no new cases for the previous 42 days – that isn’t the end of Ebola.

Cafod, along with two other faith charities, Christian Aid and Tearfund, believe the Ebola crisis needs faith leaders to be at the heart of longer-term Ebola recovery plans. Our own faith partnerships and networks in Ebola-affected areas have been largely untapped, and yet are crucial when international bodies such as the UN and EU draw up their development strategies.

However, many local faith organisations are overstretched and their resources are insufficient. Cafod’s 2013 report, Funding at the Sharp End, highlighted that despite rhetorical international commitments to support local capacity, national and local NGOs currently receive less than 1 per cent of international humanitarian funding.

Faith networks need to be at the heart of the next phase of the international and national Ebola response, from development planning to funding. They are in a better position to support the sustainable, long-term investment that will rebuild lives and create a new hope for people of Ebola-affected countries.

Anne Street is head of Humanitarian Policy at Cafod, the aid agency of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales