This week, the Anglican Alliance is convening a global gathering of Anglican leaders, agencies and partners in Dubai to reimagine how, together, we equip the Church for disaster preparedness and response in the context of our rapidly changing world.
The gathering is a crucial opportunity to strengthen our collective capacity, build relationships and share the most effective tools for disaster response and resilience.
Over the next few days we will be…
- Strengthening relationships among Anglican leaders and agencies, fostering trust, learning, and shared mission.
- Sharing knowledge, models, and strategies across the Communion.
- Promoting asset-based approaches that build on community strengths for disaster preparedness and resilience.
- Piloting sustainable models using Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) and the “Receivers to Givers” philosophy.
- Developing ways to measure impact through community-led methods like storytelling and locally adapted tools.
- Building on the success of the Partners in Resilience and Response (PiRR) model, exploring ways to scale and adapt it.
- Growing the Church’s ability to lead, partner, advocate, and serve in protracted crises and new humanitarian contexts.
The participants, who come from all parts of the Anglican Communion – including Mozambique, the Philippines, New Zealand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Canada, Panama, Israel/Palestine, South Africa and Malawi, have experience of responding to all kinds of disasters – from cyclones and catastrophic flooding to earthquakes and protracted conflict.
Rob Dawes, executive director of the Anglican Alliance, spoke of the power of togetherness as he opened the consultation – and the unique position the Church to be a force for good in times of disaster. “If you wanted to design a system to bring positive change into local communities with reach across the whole world”, he said, “you’d probably come up with something that would look very much like the Church”.
Welcoming the group to Christ Church, Jebel Ali, where the consultation is being held, Fr Jim Young said, “What I like about the Anglican Alliance is that it’s proactive. It gets ready for what’s coming; it plans for the future”.
Please pray for the gathering as we seek to discern what God is calling us to next, together, to connect, equip and inspire the worldwide Anglican family to prepare for, respond to, and come through disasters well, with love, faith and hope.
Background – Why are we doing this?
The world is facing a pandemic of disasters – from catastrophic weather events to conflict and displacement.
Local churches are often the first to respond to disasters. Part of their local communities, they are there before external help arrives and long after it leaves.
A key role of the Anglican Alliance is to support churches across the Anglican Communion as they respond to disasters, connecting with them and coordinating joint responses by Anglican agencies. In recent years, we have also been intentionally building the resilience of churches – growing their capacity to prepare for, and come through, disasters.
From the earthquake response in Vanuatu to supporting Al-Ahli Anglican hospital in Gaza, we have seen the effectiveness of these approaches and both the potential and power of churches to act with compassion, faith and practical support.
It is now time to take our disaster response and resilience work to the next level. Building on all we have learned, we need to reimagine our disaster response and resilience work for the rapidly changing global context.
That’s why we have convened the consultation in Dubai – to strengthen our collective capacity, build relationships and share the most effective tools for disaster response and resilience.
