These AHCN Communities of Practice are all open for people to join.
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted what Anglicans can do when connected and equipped and indicates the enormous potential of the AHCN. Throughout the pandemic, the emerging AHCN has brought technical health expertise to the Communion’s global Covid-19 response, playing a key role in the global Covid-19 task force convened by the Anglican Alliance.
In late 2020, the nascent AHCN organised two briefings by senior technical staff of the World Health Organization on the Covid-19 pandemic and progress towards the development of a vaccine. The first, for Anglican Primates on the Covid-19 pandemic, was held in November, following which they made a call for ‘equitable’ roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine; the second, in December, was for Anglicans working across the world in health.
Since then the AHCN developed a joint policy position paper on vaccine equity with the Anglican Alliance.
AHCN members are now actively engaged in three interfaith communities of practice established by WHO to help guide partnership activities with faith communities in response to COVID-19 and to co-develop information and resources on Covid vaccines to address vaccine hesitancy, misinformation and promote vaccine uptake.
With the support of the network, the Church of England has partnered with UNICEF, the National Health Service and UK faith partners in launching the Give the World a Shot campaign in the UK – an approach that is now being extended to other countries. Anglicans from the nascent AHCN have also taken part in the WHO interfaith communities of practice (WHO COPs) in developing advocacy and training webinars on Covid-19 vaccines for faith communities world-wide. You can sign up to receive information about these here.
In July 2021 it was a pleasure to have over 60 people from across the Communion join us for the first Webinar offered by the newly launched Anglican Health and Community Network (AHCN) on the Cross Border Malaria Initiative kindly hosted by the JC Flowers Foundation. We were most grateful to Rebecca Vander Meulen and her colleagues for lending their skills, coaching, technical assistance, translation and zoom platform to enable this great webinar to take place. We were also grateful to the Anglican Alliance for providing support to the French translation.
This is the link to the full webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0hHOVlDExA
One recurring theme in our calls with clergy and lay leaders across the Communion this year is the increasing and unmet need for mental health support. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the physical, social, and psychological burden of care on family members, clergy, and lay leaders alike. Mental health challenges are more prevalent and evident now than in recent years.
The AHCN is exploring ways to support both clergy and lay leaders in strengthening our own psychosocial wellbeing and providing quality support to others. To this end the AHCN will work in partnership with other Anglican partners to explore the mental stresses and needs faced by Anglican clergy and health workers in their ministry. Through a series of conversations aimed at ‘listening, sharing and praying together’, we hope the community of practice will grow, and begin to identify together practical ways to respond.