Faith and the COVID-19 Pandemic at Two Years: A Retrospective

Looking Back to Look Forward: COVID-19 Faith Reflections on 2020-2021

March 11, 2022
9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. EST
Location: Online Zoom Webinar

NPR's one-year retrospective headline read "March 11, 2020: The Day Everything Changed." The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that day in 2020 that "WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic." It was clear then that religious communities would be affected by and respond to the situation in distinctive and significant ways. The Berkley Center, the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities, and the World Faiths Development Dialogue decided to track these aspects of what then loomed as a momentous but highly uncertain crisis.

Part two of a webinar series on the theme of “Looking Back to Look Forward,” this webinar took stock of the Religious Responses to COVID-19 project, which has involved continuous monitoring of media and research analysis and commentary and regular reports distilling this information, as well as webinars, articles, and partnership activities. This event also launched a website platform for the project's resource repository, which includes over 1,000 resources to date on how different faith actors have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and broader emergencies.

This event was co-sponsored by the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities, the World Faiths Development Dialogue, and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University.

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Other Participants

Related Publications

Organizational Publication March 12, 2022

The Religious Responses to COVID-19 Project Brief

The Religious Responses to COVID-19 Project is a collaboration of the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Community Partnerships (JLI), and the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD). This brief summarizes the work that continues as a collaborative effort.

Working Paper March 7, 2022

Two Years and Counting: COVID-19 Through a Religious Lens

The COVID-19 experience offers insights and lessons for religious engagement in future pandemic preparedness and response. This working paper highlights major themes observed so far at the two-year point of the pandemic.

Website March 30, 2020

Faith and COVID-19: Resource Repository

This online platform aims to collect and communicate information related to religious actors responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizing information so that it can be quickly found and used by development policymakers and practitioners and religious actors who seek to work together in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and broader emergencies.
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