His Holiness the Dalai Lama and leaders from the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance, led by Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji - Muniji, united to promote a message of cleanliness during the Kalachakra Initiation and Puja in Bodh Gaya, India. 

Over 100,000 people heard the leaders speak about the importance of faith and the power it has towards catalysing sustainable behaviour change.

They emphasised the need for cleanliness – internally within our hearts and minds and externally in our communities and villages. They also spoke about the great need to work together to ensure all people have access to healthy clean, sanitation, and to protect and preserve our environment.

During the event, a copy of GIWA's WASH in Buddhism book was presented to the Dalai Lama and plans for the launch of GIWA's upcoming WASH in Faith series of books were discussed.

Afterwards, all held hands in an interfaith pledge for WASH for all and performed a water blessing ceremony, praying that all people of all religions and all cultures should have access to life sustaining water.

The occasion was blessed by Pujya Giani Gurbachan Singhji, Chief Jathedar Akal Takht, Golden Temple, Acharya Dr. Lokesh Muniji, Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswatiji, Sardar Parmajit Chandhokji, Sardar Kuldeep Bhogalji, Swamini Adityananda Saraswatiji, and members of UNICEF India and UNICEF Bihar joined the auspicious occasion.

Exciting results from a project to improve access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene across the Anglican Diocese of Niassa in northern Mozambique; it has proved extremely successful in generating significant behaviour change, according to the independent assessment. 

And one of the reasons given for its success is the strength of the Church's links with the remote, rural communities which the project targeted.
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The project built on 10 years of community work by the Diocese, says Joanne Beale, who led the project for the Diocese of Niassa. "The church's established and respected position in the local community means that that a longer term, transformative approach makes better use of the Diocese's strengths," she says. 

Mozambique has one of the highest child mortality rates in the world: the national under five mortality rate is 90 deaths per 1000 live births, and the two provinces targeted by the project - Zambezi and Niassa - have some of the poorest water and sanitation coverage in the country. When the project started, knowledge of hygiene practices were very low. For example, in a survey of 328 households, 55% could not give any causes of diarrhoea and 48% listed ‘after defecating’ as a time that they washed their hands.  

The project used existing Church structures, in particular community-based teams called Equipas de Vida, or Life Teams, to disseminate information and training via a cascading network of people. Made up of volunteers, the Equipas de Vida were originally created by congregations as part of the Church's HIV and AIDS programme. However, while an Equipa da Vida was an initial entry point, the programme functioned impartially, serving all members of a village irrelevant of religious belief, including Muslims, traditional beliefs and other Christian denominations.  

The training methodology involved Adeptos (Diocesan staff members) training Animators (community-based volunteers, usually members of an Equipa da Vida), each of whom in turn trained ten Counsellors (also volunteers), who again transferred the information to 10 households. In this way, information was very effectively disseminated to the wider community. Training was given in six modules: 1) disease transmission, 2) hand washing, 3) storage and treatment of water, 4) latrines, 5) treatment of diarrhoea and 6) action plan. 

The effectiveness of this training methodology meant a high proportion of community members retained the knowledge they had received, and community members all said there had been a reduction in infant mortality due to changed practices as a result of the education programme. The project was also effective because it built the capacity of natural leaders within a community to trigger behaviour change. It is now being scaled up to reach more communities.

Click on the poster below to find out more about the project. 

His Holiness Pope Francis has invited Christians to add two new items to the traditional 14 spiritual and corporal works of mercy to combat ecological destruction and global warming.

​In a message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Pope Francis said Christians should consider adding “care for our common home” to the traditional set of works first described by Jesus as part of the criteria used to determine who will go to Heaven.

The pope also called on individuals in the various countries of the world to push their governments to make good on recent international agreements aimed at halting the warming of the atmosphere and encouraging sustainable development.

The works of mercy, normally listed as seven corporal and seven spiritual directives, were first taken from Jesus' words in Matthew's Gospel, when he says the ones who enter Heaven will be those who have given food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, and have clothed the naked and sheltered the homeless.

Repeating his call from his June 2015 ecological encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis said: 'If we look at the works of mercy as a whole, we see that the object of mercy is human life itself and everything it embraces. Obviously "human life itself and everything it embraces" includes care for our common home.'

The Pope added: 'Human beings are deeply connected with all of creation. When we mistreat nature, we also mistreat human beings.' It was time, he said, for humanity to 'repent of the harm we are doing to our common home'.

He continued: 'So let me propose a complement to the two traditional sets of seven: may the works of mercy also include care for our common home. 

'As a spiritual work of mercy, care for our common home calls for a "grateful contemplation of God’s world" which "allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us".

'As a corporal work of mercy, care for our common home requires "simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness" and "makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world".'

For more information, visit the story on National Catholic Reporter.

September 1 marks the start of the Season of Creation and a month of eco-contemplation for Christians around the world. 

The Season of Creation is a month-long prayerful observation of the world, its beauty and the ecological crises that threaten it and all its inhabitants, including issues around water and sanitation. It runs from the World Day of Prayer for Creation, on September 1, through to October 4, the feast day of St Francis of Assisi.

Last year, Pope Francis placed it on the Catholic liturgical calendar, officially bringing the globe's estimated 1.2 billion Catholics into the annual celebration for the first time, although the Season of Creation has been celebrated by other Christian denominations for decades.

In 1989 Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I proclaimed September 1 as a Day of Prayer for Creation in the Orthodox church, and adopted by major European Christian churches in 2001. 

From there, faith communities began extending the celebration until Feast of St Francis - known as the patron saint of ecology - on October 4. In 2007 the Third European Ecumenical Assembly adopted it, with the World Council of Churches following suit the next year.

For more information as well as resources and prayers, there are a number of websites available. Here are a few:

• Anglican Communion Environmental Network
• SeasonofCreation.org 
  
• SeasonofCreation.com 
• Letallcreationpraise.org
• UMCdiscipleship.org 
• WebofCreation.org​

.World Water Day on March 22 falls in the same week as Easter this year and many Christian groups are using this season of Lent to focus on the fact that this precious resource, regarded as a gift from God, is denied to millions around the world.

The Ecumenical Water Network – a network of churches and Christian organisations promoting people's access to water around the world – provides a series of Biblico-theological reflections for Lent every year, called Seven Weeks for Water. This year, its focus is on the water crisis in Middle East, with specific reference to Palestine and issues of justice and peace.

The Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute (SAFCEI) is also focusing on water as part of its Lent preparations. SAFCEI says: 'As Easter is a time of resurrection and new life, World Water Day this year takes on special significance, as water is a primary source of life, and new life.

'As much as water is connected with life, its loss or lack is felt very sorely. Too many places in southern Africa are experiencing drought at the moment; Zimbabwe declared a ‘state of disaster’ in February because of drought, Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa faces the same problem. Thus it is apt to make this source of life central in our thoughts, prayers and actions around the time of Easter and beyond.'

CAFOD is running a Turn on the Taps fundraising campaign as its Lent Appeal to help provide clean water to people living in poverty. It has also developed a fantastic series of resources for secondary schools for Lent called, Make a Splash.

This fascinating article by Elizabeth Stoddard looks at how the presence and language of religion pervades all aspects of life in Kenya – and, indeed, many other African countries – and is seen as entirely natural. For example, it is very common to see prayers or exortations to the Almighty, such as this one on a taxi in Mombasa.

Elizabeth Stoddard considers how this can present challenges to a secular development mindset which is accustomed to seeing religion as belonging to a private sphere. The article appears as part of the Faith in Development blog by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University in the United States.

As Vicky Lavy makes clear in her paper written for the Christian Medical Fellowship, caring for the sick and dying has long been a hallmark of faith groups. Her paper focuses mainly on the role of the Christian community, but offers fascinating reading into some of the history of faith-based health care (not all of it complimentary to faith groups).

She quotes the African Religious Health Assets Programme (ARHAP), commissioned by the Gates Foundation in 2008, which looked at the contribution of religious entities to health in sub-Saharan Africa. As well as finding that faith groups provided as much as 70% of health care in parts of East and Southern Africa, it also contained anecdotal evidence that people preferred to be treated in mission hospitals, "where they feel staff are motivated by their faith to treat patients with dignity and respect, give spiritual care and have a commitment to serve the poor".

 Evangelical faith groups are providing humanitarian assistance to broken and impoverished communities around the world, but there are two things they desperately want from their secular counterparts:

• greater understanding about what their intentions are – and are not; and
• greater recognition of the contribution they are making.

That's the introduction to an article in Christian Today about a new brief submitted to the United Nations World Humanitarian Summit taking place in Istanbul next year by the World Evangelical Alliance [WEA] that articulates these concerns.​ Read the full article here.