#202
Major Holidays; Translating Localization into Practice

This weekend, three major religions observed some of their most sacred holidays - Easter, Passover, and Ramadan - and the period also coincided with several other significant religious festivals. NPR invited an imam, a rabbi, and a pastor to reflect on what it meant to their congregations to celebrate these holidays with fewer COVID-19 restrictions than in the previous two years, in the wake of so much loss from the pandemic and in the midst of grappling with global catastrophes. Different voices were raised to express their joy about the return of in-person services, including Rev. Dr. Dumas Harshaw Jr., who serves as pastor at First Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. "It really has been a lot of excitement because no matter how effective social media is and the virtual and live streaming, there's nothing like being in the presence of other people, believers, and the embrace of humanity is very special," he remarked. His church still requires masks and enforces social distancing, while offering livestream services for those not ready to return.

Communities across many world regions have mobilized to support the COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery in a multitude of ways. One such example, built on the model of supporting localized initiatives, has been the European Union-funded Awareness with Human Action (AHA) project. It has sought to contribute to the response efforts to the COVID-19 pandemic by preventing conflict and building social cohesion in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and broader South Asia. A centerpiece of the project was 50 small grants to diverse local groups to advance project ends within Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The World Faiths Development Dialogue produced a series of research briefs, case reviews, and interviews to draw insights from the grantees and the effects of COVID-19 that they faced, with a central project objective of learning and communicating about what has been learned. Several briefs zero in on the roles religious communities are playing in COVID-19 vaccinations in the South Asia region.

In South Africa, faith leaders have joined health experts including the Progressive Health Forum in criticizing draft regulations related to COVID-19. The regulations, they claim, included no progressive shift in terms of response, with the country wanting to utilize the “same nonsense” that was used in the Disaster Management Act earlier in the pandemic. Freedom of Religion South Africa (FORSA), an organization that represents various faith communities, raised concerns that some public submissions were deleted without being read. “It's a gross violation of the public participation process, and potentially flaws the entire government process,” said Michael Swain, executive director of FORSA.

In Catholic high schools, administrators are reflecting and lamenting pandemic-driven changes to community service hours requirements. Over the past two years, students either abandoned volunteering or struggled to find safe ways to serve their communities. “For communities, thousands of dependable volunteer hours vanished at a moment of spiraling need. And the students lost out on the kind of empathy-building experiences that such requirements were designed to create.” In-person volunteering opportunities remain limited and piecemeal re-implementation of community service hours has caused confusion, but the situation has also prompted creativity as some students rise boldly to the challenge of finding safe ways to serve their communities.