{"id":13144,"date":"2021-09-03T18:06:28","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T18:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=13144"},"modified":"2021-09-03T18:06:28","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T18:06:28","slug":"acweca-catholic-sisters-encouraged-to-advocate-for-covid-19-vaccination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2021\/09\/03\/acweca-catholic-sisters-encouraged-to-advocate-for-covid-19-vaccination\/","title":{"rendered":"ACWECA: Catholic Sisters Encouraged to Advocate for Covid-19 Vaccination"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA<\/em><\/p>\n

Consecrated women in Eastern and Central Africa (ACWECA) in their just concluded plenary assembly have been urged to advocate for Covid-19 vaccination especially to those who are still resistant to receiving the vaccine.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Thursday, August 26, on the topic \u201cCollaborative networks for collective impact: A unifying lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic,\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 Sr. Jane Wakahiu the head of Catholic Sisters Initiative at Conrad N. Hilton Foundation said, \u201cOne specific challenge we face is ministering to those who remain resistant to vaccination against Covid-19 even as the pandemic continues to rage.\u201d<\/p>\n

She reminded the Consecrated women that \u201cas a prophet called and commissioned by God to serve,\u201d collaboration is key to help \u201cguide those who continue to reject the vaccine as an option to save life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referencing Joshua\u2019s leadership and how he led Israelites to the Promised Land Sr. Wakahiu said, \u201cWe can borrow leadership examples from Joshua (where) he recounts ways that God intervened in their lives and the lives of their ancestors, and he rebuked the Israelites for their continued service to other gods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoshua challenged the Israelites as a community to affirm their commitment to God (and) declared, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua’s declaration inspired the Israelites to affirm the same, renew their covenant with God and agree to keep the statues and ordinances,\u201d Sr. Wakahiu a member of the Little Sisters of St. Francis (LSOSF) shared with the online participants of ACWECA\u2019s 18th<\/sup> Plenary Assembly and continued, \u201cMy dear sisters, it takes courage to stand up for what we know is right, to ‘love our neighbor’ through taking the vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n

She narrated that Pope Francis underscored that “a vaccine is an act of love,” hence even though Sisters have stood up as prophets to educate and advocate for vaccine uptake, they are encouraged to continue doing so for that is \u201cwhat prophets do.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Sr. Wakahiu, \u201cThere has been massive misinformation about the pandemic through social media questioning the validity and reliability of vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must learn to master this communications process if we are to counter those who are skeptical and who continue to mislead others, whether about vaccines or about health care or about education or about the needs of the people we serve,\u201d she highlighted adding that the role of Religious Sisters is to “serve the Lord in all that we do, using all the tools of communications and collaboration to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her presentation during the five-day plenary which concluded on Friday August 27, held under the theme \u201cRe-awakening the Prophetic Role: A Call for Re-formation towards Holistic Transformation,\u201d Sr. Wakahiu asked the Major Superiors of Congregations to \u201cstop, pause and reflect together on the pandemic challenges\u201d so as to find better and stronger ways of service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA Consecrated women in Eastern and Central Africa (ACWECA) in their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acweca","category-amecea-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13145,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144\/revisions\/13145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}