An expert in Health Education, Dr Doris Nria, has called on religious leaders in the State to use messages and sermons to educate their congregation on the COVID-19 preventive measures in order to check its spread in the state.
Dr Nria, who was speaking as a resource person recently at training for facilitators on sensitisation of religious leaders on COVID-19 preventive measures, stated that one way for them to do this was by including messages on the reality of COVID-19 and how it can be prevented in their sermons.
Emphasising on the fact that many people, particularly in the religious circles, are still living in denial, the health educator urged the religious leaders to let their members know that they do not need to see a loved one get infected with the virus before acknowledging that it is real.
“You want a family member to be down with COVID-19 before you believe? That is the question we should put to them (people still living in denial). So, we have to make sure that we pass messages that will touch the lives of our people so that in our messages as Christians, in our mosques we have to build in messages of COVID-19 into our sermon so that our people will come out of this spirit of denial and rejection”, she said.
Such declarations as “God forbid”, “It’s not my portion!”, she stated further, should not be what they do, particularly when they have not really observed the rules on how to live to make sure that they don’t get infected.
Nria, who delved into the origin of the coronavirus in China, through its spread across the globe, to Nigeria, and how it can be contracted, with its consequent health and economic effect on the populace, stated that their position as leaders of a significant population of people makes it mandatory for them to make sure the COVID-19 prevention messages get to their followers.
She also noted that the current focus on Obio/Akpor and Port Harcourt Local Government Areas is warranted by the fact that they constitute the industrial fulcrum of the state, which makes it possible for easy transmission of the virus, if not well checked.
Speaking at the occasion, chairman of Faith For Life Project, Rev. Felix Ekiye, said the training would be carried out in other LGAs, and that the target was to ensure that over 80 per cent of congregations in churches were duly sensitised on the NCDC guidelines on COVID-19 preventive measures.
Reiterating the stance of Dr Nria, the UNICEF consultant on Communication for Development, Mrs Glory Odu-Oji, said given their position as religious leaders, they were in a better position to pass on whatever they got at the training to their followers, who believe in them, and so would easily adhere to their directives.
She noted that “the government and UNICEF are depending on you to pass on the COVID-19 prevention messages to your followers in order to curtail infection”.
On hispart, Amb. Sunday Abel, the representative of the acting general manager of the Rivers State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), charged participants to ensure that they paid adequate attention to the training, and duly pass on the message learned to their followers in order to achieve targeted result.
Organised by the Faith For Life Initiative Project, the programme brought together various facilitators who were sensitised on COVID-19 prevention protocols to equip them and enable them pass on the message to members of their various churches.
