Lives and day-to-day work and relationships have changed due to COVID-19. Religious leaders and health care workers share how faith actors are addressing family planning during COVID in an ICFP Community Panel on February 2, 2021. https://youtu.be/_BKNqlVCwRo What has been the impact of COVID on violence against children and effect of teenage pregnancies? How have faith actors reached communities through the media, through religious institutions, and through faith-based health facilities and health workers affiliated with those facilities? What has been happening at the facility and in the community? Learn the tools faith actors have used and how they’ve adapted. MODERATOR: Mona Bormet Click here for the International Conference on Family Planning Recommendation Paper
The Importance of Including Faith-Based Organizations
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FAMILY PLANNING RECOMMENDATION PAPER
The ICFP forum brings us together to learn, share and find innovative ways to improve the quality and coverage of our family planning work in order to meet the reproductive health needs of the community. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how quickly our approaches and systems can be impacted and lead to negative results
Faith communities and faith leaders play crucial gate keeping and influencing roles in the success of advancing health in developing countries. Existing cultural and religious practices can also contribute to or further exasperate the issues that lead to poor health outcomes for the mother and child. Faith communities can even be the drivers of misinformation; thus, creating barriers that prohibit people from visiting clinics, receiving vaccinations, or using family planning methods. The influence of faith communities and faith leaders have been an essential component of efforts to address early marriage, combat harmful traditional practices, establish equitable treatment for women and girls, and overcome the stigma around male involvement in RMNCH.
Visit the ICFP Forum website
Click here for the Community Session Panel on Faith Actors & Family Planning During COVID-19
COMMUNITY-BASED FAMILY PLANNING PROJECT- ENDLINE EVALUATION
Christian Connections for International Health (CCIH) and Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau (UPMB)
COMMUNITY-BASED FAMILY PLANNING PROJECT ENDLINE EVALUATION
From December 2017 through June 2019
In December 2017, Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau (UPMB) was awarded a one-year cooperative funding agreement from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through Advancing Partners and Communities (APC) to implement a project to integrate community-based family planning (FP) into the Anglican Church of Uganda’s health structures and health facilities. UPMB is the coordinating body for Protestant health services in Uganda, including health services provided through the Church of Uganda (COU), and oversees a network of 18 hospitals and 272 lower-level health facilities across the country. UPMB works in partnership with the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MOH) and through its 302 facilities provides an estimated 13% of health services in the country. For this project, UPMB worked in partnership with Christian Connections for International Health (CCIH), a United States-based network of faith-based organizations (FBOs) and individuals working in international health which has been a leader in promoting FBO involvement in FP. UPMB and CCIH affirm that voluntary FP services are a critical component of family and community health, and that religious leaders (RLs) and church-owned health facilities can be important partners in promoting and providing community-based FP services.
The project was implemented in the period December 2017 to June 2019 through four COU churches, each of which operates a health facility. Although project activities began in December 2017, training of religious leaders and health workers and subsequent outreach activities did not begin until April 2018. Of the four health facilities, two are in peri-urban Kampala and two are in rural areas in central and east central Uganda.
Faith and Family Planning: Working Together to Drive Progress Post 2020
Religion plays an important role in many FP2020 priority countries, where faith leaders influence health-seeking behavior and faith based organizations (FBOs) provide a notable share of healthcare information, services and supplies. FBOs are seen as credible and trustworthy through their continuous presence at the grassroots level, notably in conflict-ridden or hard-to-reach communities where other actors appear only intermittently. FBOs help contextualize family planning concepts and interventions by using language and approaches that resonate with the cultures and beliefs of the communities they serve. When FBOs provide leadership supporting family planning, they may contribute powerful incentives in favor of it.
Strengthening Family Planning within Faith-Based Organizations in Uganda
More than 200 million women in the developing world want to avoid pregnancy but currently are not using family planning. Family planning can contribute to reductions in maternal and child mortality and improve health and wellbeing. Christian hospitals, clinics, and healthcare programs have a unique role to play in providing family planning services in Africa. However, these facilities often lack the capacity to provide quality services, and donor funding for faith-based organizations (FBO) has historically been limited in scope and duration, making it difficult to achieve impact at scale. In spite of these challenges, the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB) and the Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau (UPMB) have shown commitment and great resourcefulness in advancing family planning within their networks.
ANGLICAN CHURCH OF UGANDA: A Training Handbook For Religious Leaders And Church Institutions Christian-Based Approach
Church of Uganda Training Handbook
CHURCH OF UGANDA
A TRAINING HANDBOOK
FOR RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND CHURCH INSTITUTIONS
CHRISTIAN-BASED APPROACH TO:
Maternal and Child Health
Sexual Reproductive Health
HIV and AIDS
Gender
Gender Based Violence
Family Planning
This hand book offers a unique opportunity to equip religious leaders with update knowledge on sexual reproductive health, family planning, maternal child health, HIV/AIDS, Gender equality and Gender based violence with relevant scriptural references. Use of this hand book will help guide us religious leaders in development of short messages on reproductive health for integration in church sermons, marriage counseling sessions and other Christian gatherings where one has to communicate. This will enable us communicate a uniform message on reproductive health based on scientific facts while upholding our Christian values.
Understanding Religious Influences on Family Planning: Findings from Monitoring and Evaluation in Senegal
Religious beliefs and leadership can play important if complex roles in family planning decisions at many levels, but there are significant gaps in understanding how these influences affect family planning policies and programs. The World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD), in partnership with the Senegalese association CRSD (Cadre des Religieux pour la Santé et le Développement), is working to deepen understanding of how religious leadership can support Senegal’s family planning strategies. Senegal’s religious institutions affect daily life in many ways and religiosity there ranks among the world’s highest. However, specific information on how that striking statistic translates into personal decision-making is sparse. This brief reports on 2016 and 2017 studies focused on the influence of religious institutions, beliefs, and leaders on family planning decisions in Senegal.
Strategic Approaches for engaging Religious Leaders in family planning in Senegal
In Senegal, many people are uncertain what their religious traditions teach about birth spacing and family planning. the Cadre des Religieux pour la Santé et le Développement (CRSD) is an interfaith association of Senegalese faith leaders, to promote maternal and child health and clarify religious teachings on family planning. This poster provides an overview of CRSD’s mission and activities, focusing notably on CRSD’s exploration of what Islamic teachings say about family planning; workshops for women’s religious community groups; and CRSD’s exchange visits within the region to encourage the engagement of faith leaders in promoting birth spacing and improve collaboration between faith communities, governments, and other stakeholders.
The Global Church and Family Planning Webinar
The Global Church and
Family Planning Webinar
Sept 28th
The Global Church and Family Planning hosted by CCIH and the Christian Journal for Global Health which featured programs highlighted in the special Family Planning issue of the Journal.
For more from CCIH on Family Planning click here
Keeping the Faith in Sexual and Reproductive Health: Family Planning
This Faithful Affirmations Overview gives a comparative, ‘at a glance’, perspective, on how different faith traditions view Family Planning, in a manner which affirms the relevant human rights involved. This is the result of a collaborative process, between different faith-based actors, who partner on diverse SDG themes simultaneously with UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNICEF and UN Women, among other UN System entities