AMECEA: Pastoral Department Set to Provide Spiritual and Psycho-social Services, a Response to COVID-19 Challenges

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA

In a bid to respond to Covid-19 challenges which have affected several households within the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) region in the past months, the AMECEA pastoral department has develop a program aimed at providing spiritual and psycho-social services to individuals who have been impacted in various ways.

“In order to respond to the impact of the pandemic, we have developed a project which aims at reaching out to the pastoral agents; priests, Religious men and women, the laity working within the Catholic institutions, medical and health care providers and the general public irrespective of denomination to facilitate the provision of psycho-social support to them,” AMECEA Pastoral Coordinator Fr. Emmanuel Chimombo has said in an interview.

“The spread of Corona-virus as well as stringent government preventive measures continue to have dramatic effects on personal and professional lives. A good number of people have lost their jobs and this has increased emotional strain, some have been traumatized and others hit hard economically” Fr. Chimombo who has served as the AMECEA Pastoral Coordinator for the last four years said during interview with AMECEA online on Thursday, July 16 .

He further explained that the intention is to find out how people are copying up with such situations and assist accordingly.

“We know that governments and other organizations are supporting their people materially and financially but we wanted to do it differently as a faith response and in a way which is normally ignored, that is spiritually,” the Malawian-born cleric underscored.

The project rolled out at the beginning of July but the counseling and group therapy programs which will begin the first week of August will cover all the member countries of AMECEA region which includes Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia.

According to Fr. Chimombo, the psycho-social support will be provided in two main forms: the one-on-one counselling on-site or using the relevant means of communication; and radio-based group therapy.

“On offering one-on-one counselling services, each Conference will have a designated counsellor who is well qualified. The counselling will be done virtually or through phones but not physically,” Fr. Chimombo explained due to the pandemic, physical contact has been deterred, hence AMECEA has to act within the confines as recommended by health experts in terms of managing the spread of Coronavirus.

“If the issue is too huge,” the priest narrated, the counselee will be referred for further counselling.

“The second form is offering therapy through radio programs,” Fr. Chimombo said and continued, “Each Conference will identify a radio station that has a wide coverage and a councilor will be available for about an hour on a designated day to engage with listeners and offer professional counsel. They will be responding to the concerns being raised and offer solution to some concrete challenges that are affecting the people.”

“In case one cannot raise an issue over the radio and needs a one-on–one attention, they will be directly connected to the counsellors in private for more one-one-one help,” he said.

Responding to the challenges that may hinder the successful realization of the project, Fr. Chimombo envisages that the program may reach out to 60% of the population in each conference.

“Even though we have high expectations, we know that some people cannot afford the means we intend to use and this may not favor those who may be more traumatized,” he said.

“Connectivity is another challenge, because not all countries have stable and affordable phone or internet connection, but all in all, half a loaf is better than none for we cannot actually reach everybody,” adds the cleric.

Currently the Conferences are sensitizing the people through various means on the availability of these services which will begin soon.

AMECEA will also coordinate the feedback and experience sharing among counselors on a bi- weekly basis to capture issues that need specialized attention but also offer counselor supervision to them.