Caring in crisis: The experiences of local religious leaders meeting community food needs in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic

Shoshannah Joanna Speers; Lincoln Leehang Lau; Hannah Tait Neufeld; Danilo Servano Jr; Daryn Joy Go; Amy Kipp; Laura Jane Brubacher; Warren Dodd

doi:10.1016/j.wss.2023.100154

Caring in crisis: The experiences of local religious leaders meeting community food needs in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wellbeing Space Soc. 2023 Dec:5:100154. doi: 10.1016/j.wss.2023.100154. Epub 2023 Jun 14.

Authors

Shoshannah Joanna Speers¹, Lincoln Leehang Lau^{1

2

3}, Hannah Tait Neufeld¹, Danilo Servano Jr², Daryn Joy Go², Amy Kipp¹, Laura Jane Brubacher¹, Warren Dodd¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1.
² International Care Ministries, Unit 1701, 17th Floor, West Tower, Philippine Stock Exchange Center, Exchange Road, Ortigas Center, Pasig City, Metro Manila, Philippines, 1605.
³ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 155 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 3M7.

Abstract

To respond to the unintended consequences of prevention measures to reduce COVID-19 transmission, individuals and groups, including religious leaders, have collaborated to provide care to those negatively impacted by these measures. Amid these various efforts and interventions, there is a need to deepen our understanding of diverse expressions of care across various geographical and social contexts. To address this need, the objective of this study was to investigate how religious leaders in the Philippines practiced care for their communities by meeting emergency food needs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by an ethics of care theoretical orientation, we conducted 25 remote semi-structured interviews with Filipino religious leaders who partnered with a Philippines-based non-governmental organization (NGO) to mobilize essential food aid to their local communities. Through defining the efforts and activities of these religious leaders as care work, we found that religious leader experiences revolved around navigating care responsibilities, caring alongside others, and engaging holistically with the care work. Additionally, we observed how contextual factors such as the humanitarian settings where religious leaders worked, the partnership with an NGO, and the positionality of local religious leaders within their communities, fundamentally shaped the care work. This study expands our understanding of how care is practiced and experienced and also brings greater visibility to the experiences and efforts of local religious leaders in responding to humanitarian emergencies.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Ethics of care; Humanitarian response; Non-governmental organizations; Philippines; Religious leaders.