|
|
| HomeAbout UsCollaborationResearchPublicationsConferencesContact | SubscribeLogin |
About IRHAPIRHAP is a collaborative network which seeks to develop systematic evidence of religious health assets (RHAs) to align and enhance the work of religious health leaders, public policy decision-makers and other health workers in their collaborative efforts to meet the challenge of disease such as HIV/AIDS, and to promote sustainable health, especially for those who live in poverty or under marginal conditions. Phase 1: ARHAPARHAP (The African Religious Health Assets Programme) was established in 2002 when a working group met at the Carter Center, in Atlanta USA, to consider a proposal for a global religious health assets initiative. The initiative recognized the general paucity of studies on religious entities working in health, both in respect of knowing what is there, and in extensively, intensively and intelligently assessing what religious organisations and initiatives do best, and how they do this, in the face of growing public health crises in many parts of the world ....more... Phase 2: IRHAPAt the end of 2011, ARHAP was relaunched - building on its established network, but with a renewed form. The Hub (the administrative and operational centre) remains at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), but was relocated from the Department of Religious Studies to the School of Public Health and Family Medicine (SPHFM).This move adds further sustainability, a new pool of public health experts to the work and a more significant focus on health systems strengthening. Reflecting better its unfolding work, its name also changes to the International Religious Health Assets Programme....more... NATURE OF THE WORKWe see the work of IRHAP as vitally engaged in the emergence of a much needed contemporary movement of people, groups and institutions that are rethinking the potentially transformative role of religion and religious entities in health and development. Cognizant of the ways in which religion and religious entities may act that does not enhance the health of the public, IRHAP nevertheless seeks that which is generative about them, that which already or potentially, in a myriad local and trans-local contexts, positively contributes to the health of all....more... NATURE OF THE COLLABORATIVEIRHAP is by nature an interdisciplinary, international and intercultural research collaborative. It incorporates scholars, practitioners and intellectuals from a broad range of institutions (including universities from different continents, funding organisations, health organisations, religious entities, etc). The scholars represent disciplines such as theology, sociology, public health economics, anthropology, medicine, neurology, and psychology (to name only a few), but the common interest is in learning more about the intersection of religion and public health. IRHAP continues deliberately to sit at the intersection of different disciplines and 'languages'....more... |
