NOVEMBER 2021 - On October 5, 2021, the African Council of Religious Leaders – Religions for Peace (ACRL-RfP) together with the UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO), virtually convened the interfaith conference to discuss the role of faith-based actors in advocating for safe school reopening & supporting back to school efforts.

The Faith and Education in Conversation Conference on COVID-19 brought together multi-faith religious leaders, individuals of diverse religious/faith-based organizations and institutions, and faith-based scholars/theologians from seven countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), technical experts, and other partners from UNICEF Regional and Country Offices. More than 140 participants from Eastern and Southern Africa converged for the conference.

During the conference, religious leaders from Malawi and Kenya presented their experience on the approaches used to ensure that standard operating procedures (SOPs) for safe re-opening are in place and children are back to school.

The main results relate to the onboarding of faith-based leaders at regional and national level on the COVID-19 and back-to-school issues, making them strong advocates for the safe re-opening of schools, encourage all learners to go back to school, and for the vaccination of eligible persons, especially of teachers.

The conference enabled faith-based leaders get the right information to facilitate their work with congregations, and at community level, in awareness raising and debunking false information or fake news. The platform provided by ACRL-RfP gives faith-based religious leaders the safe space to exchange, ask questions and get answers from scientific sources.

“Let Government take full responsibility not of the closure but safe reopening of schools by organizing better with the partners to ensure safety and SOPs are in place.” Rev. Dr. Cornelius Wambi Gulere, Education Secretary of the Uganda Orthodox Church Schools

Following the conference, senior representatives of interreligious councils, as well as the ACRL-RfP chairs, signed a common statement, committing to publicly advocate for school-reopening in their respective countries and to bring all children back to school.

The conference was a follow on to a similar one on Faith in Science in Conversation Conference held in March 2021, which aimed at obtaining consensus and support from religious leaders on COVID-19 vaccination.

*The African Council of Religious Leaders – Religions for Peace (ACRL-RfP) is a well-established pan-African organization that collaborates with national interreligious councils in 15 ESAR countries, to engage faith communities and galvanise the support of religious leaders to accelerate the Risk Communication and Community Engagement component of the COVID-19 response, including to support the education sector to re-open schools and bring learners back.