Keywords
collaborationsfaith-based organisations
climate change
Pacific churches
network theory
Other systems of medicine
RZ201-999
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
RC955-962
Public aspects of medicine
RA1-1270
Practical religion. The Christian life
BV4485-5099
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This article reports on an historic collaboration between Australian church-based development agencies and their partners in the Pacific – the largest in scale to date. It is now incontrovertible that climate change is damaging health and wellbeing in Pacific communities – especially in terms of climate-related disasters. Churches in the Pacific have a unique role and responsibility within the civil society in the region. This article traces some of the historical factors that have contributed to their social resonance. The article looks at how a network approach can be well suited to tackling difficult social challenges, and makes the case for the involvement of the Pacific churches in building community resilience through disaster risk reduction activities. A shared faith identity and trust are identified as two vital factors that help church-based consortia to coalesce. The article concludes that a focus on orthopraxy in its broader sense by Christian faith-based actors is a helpful perspective in achieving collaboration.Date
2017-01-01Type
ArticleIdentifier
oai:doaj.org/article:8ed2753d4ad44424849370642519a50c2167-2415
10.15566/cjgh.v4i2.160
https://doaj.org/article/8ed2753d4ad44424849370642519a50c