Disasters and Religious Institutions

Abstract

Disasters and Religious Institutions IntroductionDisasters give rise to a situation where people from different parts of the world, quite unfamiliar with each other, come into contact to save lives, provide necessities such as food and shelter, rebuild homes and enable community recovery. Humanitarian and development organisations have concerns about how to keep neutrality, stay safe, ensure respect for local sensitivities and win the necessary support of communities to carry out their job. In many places, during these hard times, community-based religious institutions such as churches, mosques and temples are still but a practical choice for reaching people living nearby to fulfil their needs (Feener & Fountain, 2018;Ngin et al., 2020). Mostly, run by communities through charity in a decentralised manner, these institutions and organisations enjoy community trust and ownership (A. R. Cheema et al., 2014;Gianisa & Le De, 2018). This chapter presents an overview of religious views and approaches to disasters and why religious institutions remain an important stakeholder during and before disasters. Also, it covers some of the key challenges that hinder an effective engagement between religious institutions and large international and national humanitarian organisations.