Faith and Health in Africa
The Centre supports work connected through the topic Faith and Health in Africa.
Professor Emma Wild-Wood has been supporting Drs Yossa Way and Amuda Baba in D.R. Congo to improve the teaching of health in faith schools. This Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project emerged from an investigation during the COVID-19 pandemic that sought to examine ‘Perceptions of COVID-19 in faith communities in DR Congo’ and ‘Conflict, epidemic and faith communities: church-state relations during the fight against Covid-19 in north-eastern DR Congo’. From these investigations the team were able to reflect with church leaders on ‘Engaging faith communities in public health messaging in response to COVID-19’, and the production of a teaching resource on ‘Faith, Healing and Medicine in the time of COVID-19’.
These writings (all open access) were influenced by an earlier study, ‘The Public Role of Churches in Early Responses to COVID-19 in Africa: Snapshots from Nigeria, Congo, Kenya and South Africa’, published in our own Studies in World Christianity. In February 2023, workshops with church leaders, medical professionals and primary school teachers to test our research revealed the importance of schools for basic health knowledge. Primary school teachers instigated a teaching tool that combines Christian teaching with good health practices. It is this work that we hope to expand.
With the support of a Royal Society of Edinburgh grant, Professor Wild-Wood is also working with the Universities of Mzuzu and Livingstonia in Malawi and Kyambogo in Uganda to raise the profile of Theology and Religious Studies in the discourses about faith and health. In 2025 two conferences were held in Mzuzu and Kampala that brought academics, medical professionals and practitioners from all religious traditions to discuss the intersection of faith and healing practices. An edited volume is now underway.
