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The Worship Action Coalition (formerly known as Roundtables) is an effort initiated by GHC3 with a commitment to helping all faiths return safely to their places of worship. The action coalition brings together faith leaders and religious thought leaders to discuss challenges and find real solutions. To that end, we have held several roundtables with prioritized input from leaders whose communities are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes and identifying faith organizations that could be influential in addressing vaccine hesitancy.
While the initial aim of the Worship Action Coalition was to create best practices for worshipping in-person safely, we are now focused on 1) the role of clergy as trusted sources of information on COVID vaccines, and 2) congregations at disproportionate risk for COVID-19 as locations where members and the surrounding community can get vaccinated, and 3) how both clergy and houses of worship can participate effectively in addressing health disparities. Together, we’re learning about the challenges and working to find real solutions.
The input we receive during our roundtables is used to develop comprehensive Back 2 Worship plans. Some of the feedback includes:
“We need information about cost, safety, and efficacy at our fingertips to encourage people to get the vaccine.”
“There should be more information about vaccine ingredients. It would be of concern to the Muslim community if ingredients were porcine deratives.”
“Can we ensure that we will not harm anyone by potential exposure to COVID-19?”
“If we can’t ensure people’s safety, we won’t return until we can.”
Faith leaders observed that precautions such as wearing masks, barring singing, no physical contact (hugging, holding hands) diminishes the value of in-person prayer.
Participants showed interest in more roundtables to “look for more opportunities to work with different faiths” and determine universal, generally applicable solutions.
GHC3 is a division of the Center for Global Health Innovation (CGHI). The Center for Global Health Innovation is an Atlanta based 501(c)3 organization that was launched in 2019 to bring together diverse Global Health, Health Technology and Life Sciences entities to collaborate, innovate and activate solutions to enhance human health outcomes around the world. At its core, CGHI will orchestrate programs that promote cross discipline cooperation to strengthen capabilities, accelerate problem solving and respond to global health crises. The Center will continue to support its subsidiary organizations, Georgia Bio and Georgia Global Health Alliance and is standing up a permanent Global Health Crisis Coordination Center to bringing to bear the best private sector and public sector capabilities and experience in times of need.
