The CORRECT-19 Model: Eight Desired Roles of Religious Leaders during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Religious leaders support communities in multiple ways during challenges such as disasters, emergencies, conflicts, and outbreaks. The COVID-19 Pandemic, too, has demonstrated the contribution of religious leaders in assisting communities across the world. On the other hand, a minority of religious leaders also have contributed to the aggravation of the outbreak, for example, by organizing religious mass gatherings, neglecting the warning given by health authorities. Thus, it is evident that the religious leaders have had both positive and negative roles during the Pandemic. The Resilience Research, Training and Consulting is implementing a project titled COmmunity Resilience through Religious Engagement for Community Trust during Covid-19 (CORRECT-19) through a grant supported by the Awareness with Human Action (AHA) project funded by the European Union. As a part of the CORRECT-19 project, we are conducting a series of focus group discussions and key informant interviews with the religious leaders from multiple religions, faiths, and spiritual traditions in Sri Lanka on their contributions during the COVID-19 Pandemic. We used content analysis to identify undesired behaviors, desired behaviors, and desired roles, using the evidence from the mainstream western medical and epidemiological systems as the point of reference in determining what is desired and undesired. The CORRECT-19 Model enlists eight desired roles of religious leaders during the Pandemic, namely the Faith-Setter, Health Promoter, Be-Friender, Social Worker, Community Mobilizer, Networker, Peacebuilder, and Advocate. We designed eight representative infographics to communicate the desired roles of religious leaders during the Pandemic. The CORRECT-19 Model depicting the eight desired roles is a helpful communication and advocacy tool in the active and meaningful engagement of religious leaders in managing the COVID-19 Pandemic.