The Council of Churches in Zambia is concerned and alarmed by the directive by the government to allow bars and night clubs to operate for longer hours while the Churches have been restricted to a maximum of one hour.

Yesterday, Local Government Minister said operating hours for bars will be reduced by 2 hours while Church congregations will be required to meet for an hour due to the outbreak of coronavirus.

In a statement, CCZ General Secretary Father Emmanuel Chikoya has since called on government to reconsider its position because it will create unnecessary agitation.

Father Chikoya says it is his organization’s desire to cooperate with the government during these challenging times but that pronouncements of this nature tend to make it difficult to convince their members to comply with government directives.

Father Chikoya says in a Christian nation, one would expect the Church to be regarded as a critical stakeholder which must be given preferential treatment compared to the bars and other places of leisure.

Below is the full Pastoral Letter

PASTORAL LETTER ON THE CORONAVIRUS DISEASE (COVID-19)

20 March 2020
Lusaka, Zambia

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord.

We greet you, as we pray together for one another, for our loved ones, and indeed for all God’s humanity in these trying times of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
We wish to begin by affirming the measures put in place by the Government of the Republic of Zambia that are aimed at combating the spread of the Coronavirus disease. As Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), we pledge our total commitment to work with and support the Government in combating this problem through up to the end of the pandemic in Zambia and world at large. And in response to the Government’s Statutory Instrument No. 22 of 2020, we call on all our member Churches to work and comply with the Government in the fight against this disease.

Having stated that, we have written this letter to share our perspective with our member Churches, Affiliates, Partners, other Stakeholders and the general public concerning the outbreak of the Coronavirus, also known as Covid-19 disease.

As a Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we understand the effects of this outbreak on the people of Zambia and the world at large. We are in a scenario like that found in the book of Mathew 8:23 where the storms hit the boat on which the disciples were while Jesus Christ was asleep on the same boat. The storms were very strong and almost overpowered the boat. But the disciples knew who was with them in the boat and they cried out to Him; and he woke up and rebuked the storms. We wish to encourage everyone that we will be secure because there is hope in the Lord; we will take our rest in safety, (Job 11:18).

The Council of Churches in Zambia pledges its commitment to collaborate with the Government of the Republic of Zambia in service delivery, especially during outbreaks and pandemics. In-as-much-as we commend government for all the measures put in place in readiness for this pandemic, we propose that going forward let us be proactive enough and stand ready for emergencies such as this.

We, however, note with gratitude the measures put in place and pray as well as hope that all medical personnel and systems will rise to the occasion if and when necessary. Overall, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to see us through to the end.

In view of the above, we would now like to address the following publics:

1. Government and other Stakeholders

1.1 Government

Working together with the Church and other concerted stakeholders, the Government of the Republic of Zambia must ensure that there is a restriction on unnecessary travel outside the country for all citizens. This is in addition to the closure of all schools in the country. The Government must further consider closing all our borders to non-citizens and allow only a few exceptions to cross into Zambia. We would also like to bring it to the attention of the Government that not all citizens can afford to buy for themselves hand sanitizers and soap for them to wash their hands as a preventive measure. In fact, some homes do not have access to clean and sanitation services which will make them more vulnerable to the Corona virus. We, therefore, appeal to the Government to come up with a mechanism that addresses these challenges.
We further call on the Government to ensure that there is proper stewardship and accountability of all donations and allocated funds for this programme, as well as cost-effective utilisation of the same.

We also advise that Pastoral and Chaplaincy services must be deliberately integrated into the interventions and responses to COVID-19. People who are affected and at risk require not only medical care but also Pastoral care, hence our request.

1.2 Health workers

We wish to assure our health workers in all health institutions across the country that our prayers are with you. During this period, you will be required to be on high alert and subsequently will be expected to work beyond your normal working hours.

Our prayer is that God will give you the strength you need and protect you from contracting the virus in your endeavour to serve lives. We encourage you to trust in the Lord and He will give you strength like that of an eagle.

We also pray that you will be supplied with all the needed resources and equipment to protect you and facilitate your work.

1.3 Political leaders

We wish to guide all our political leaders, both in the ruling and opposition political parties to avoid making political mileage out of prevailing challenges and for once come together and issue joint messages of solidarity for the good of Zambia. It is only by laying aside our selfish interest that we will quickly overcome the COVID-19 challenge.

When we unite victory is assured. As the Church we are, and will continue to pray for God’s intervention. We, therefore, plead with you that while we do our part, do your part as well by uniting as one force determined to overcome this challenge before all of us. We are all affected hence the need to work together as one team.

1.4 Traders and Business Communities

We wish to call on all traders of different merchandise, especially those in the business of supplying products such as hand sanitizers and soap products that this is not the time to overprice your merchandise.

Overpricing your merchandise will mean overburdening the already burdened citizenry due to the hard-economic challenges they are going through. Let us be considerate and avoid at all costs being greedy in our business. Let’s help everyone have access to the basic necessities in the face of the Coronavirus disease.

We, as Council of Churches in Zambia Secretariat, commit ourselves to continuously monitor and give you necessary updates until this pandemic is completely eradicated. We will also promote the interests and rights of Churches in the context of managing the COVID-19 virus.

1.5 The Media

We call upon all media houses and Journalists to carefully exercise their role of educating the masses about the Coronavirus disease by publishing official information.

1.6 Corporate entities and Cooperating Partners

We take this opportunity to thank and commend our Cooperating partners for their commitment and support in this fight against the pandemic.

2. The Christian faith Community

2.1 The Church

To our member Churches and the Church at large we need to practice holistic ministry by not only preaching and praying but join the government and all stakeholders in offering practical and supplementary support in our localities during and beyond this challenging time.

The Church of Jesus Christ must not only focus on preaching the gospel and neglect other areas of humanity. The Church must believe in holistic ministry, ensuring that all aspects of a human being are taken care of, that is, Spiritual, Physical and Emotional. In this case, let’s pray and work on ensuring that we protect and preserve human life. Let’s make the health aspect of Church members a top priority.

In the face of Coronavirus therefore, we call upon the Church to ensure that all instructions and guidelines by the Government are adhered to and announced in all the congregations. The Church commands a huge following, and will significantly contribute to preventing the spread of COVID-19 by sharing very factual and accurate information with courtesy of the Ministry of Health. The Church is one stakeholder Government counts on in the fight against this disease. While we do all we can to protect and preserve human life, let us make it a priority to pray for one another, Government, political and Church leaders and the nation as a whole for God’s intervention. Let’s us also pray for health workers in various health institutions.

2.2 The Clergy

In the Book of 2 Chronicles 12:32 were the men of Issachar who understood the times and what Israel needed to do. We wish to call on all Clergymen and women across the country to understand the times we are in and act accordingly in response to what is going on. This is a time when Science and the Word of God must work together to effectively serve the people of God from this calamity. To our member Churches, and indeed other Churches that would agree with us we recommend and instruct the following:

• Beginning with Sunday 22nd March 2020 let us pray from an informed and proactive perspective for control and eradication of this pandemic.
• Encourage people to go for medical attention and avoid contact while we are praying for them. Let us not tell our members to exclusively depend on prayer only. Let them get both prayer and medical attention from health facilities. The roles of the Church and medical facilities are complementary and not competitive.
• We encourage our member Churches to consider suspending Holy communion during this period until the Coronavirus disease is completely eradicated.
• Avoid handshakes and physical contact at all costs, including laying of hands on people while praying for them and exchanging greetings during peace.
• Overnights must be discontinued with immediate effect until this pandemic is contained.
• That all Church gatherings be shortened to not more than 1 hour in line with Government directive until our engagements with government are fully exhausted.
• Ensure there is special care for the elderly and the sick in all our member Churches during this period.
• All member Churches of the Council of Churches in Zambia that run health facilities must make them available in collaboration with the Government until the disease is completely eradicated.
• Ensure the highest levels of hygiene by sanitising Church premises as well as providing hand washing facilities at strategic and visible locations.

This is wake up call for the Church to seriously consider investing in IT and technologies that could be used during moments like this.

In the meantime, we urge the Church to fully utilise existing social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and saturate the country with messages of Hope. Creative infographics are a must as we weather the storm of COVID-19.

2.3 The Church members and general citizenry

The deadly Coronavirus which we thought was confined only to China and other countries is now a reality. Despite this, however, we want to assure that God is telling us to be still and know that He is God – Psalm 46:10.

Our call is that do not panic or be moved by the increasing number of the Coronavirus disease cases. Trust in God for He is with us.

Instead of panicking, make every effort to follow strict personal hygiene so you prevent the transmission of the disease. Adhere and follow all instructions and guidelines being shared by the Government and other authentic stakeholders and pray for God’s intervention. Let’s be each other’s keeper by loving one another in the same manner we would love ourselves. Let’s do unto others as we would love them to do unto us. This means we must take care in the manner we interact with others in public places and even in our homes in order to ensure we are all safe from contracting the virus.

Kindly take note of the following emergency lines for quick contact in the event you suspect you or another person has COVID-19:
0953898941
0964638726
0974493553

Let us also avoid panic buying of essential goods and food stuffs as this will escalate the cost of the commodities.

3. Our Concern

We are very concerned and alarmed by the directive that allows bars and other places to operate longer hours while the Church has been restricted to a maximum of one hour. We wish to call on the government to reconsider this position because it creates unnecessary speculations and agitation. It is our desire to cooperate with the government during these challenging times but pronouncements of this nature tend to make our work of convincing our member Churches to comply with government directives extremely difficult. We call upon government officials to be very consistent and clear in their pronouncements.

In a Christian nation one would expect the Church to be regarded as a critical stakeholder which must be treated better that the bars and other places of leisure. It must be noted that the Church also contributes directly and indirectly to national development.

4. Conclusion

We affirm the call in a Pastoral letter to World Council of Churches (WCC) member Churches and ecumenical partners by General Secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit and WCC Moderator Dr Agnes Abuom, in which they urge people to give highest priority to doing whatever they can to protect life and that this is the time to touch each other’s hearts, by what we say, what we share, what we do, and what we do not do to protect the life God loves so much.

We also affirm the following prayer:

God of life – lead us to justice and peace as well life! This is the God we believe in together, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God is our creator, our Saviour and our life giver.

To pray to the God of life means that we as churches together stand firm on the side of life, together with our lord and shepherd Jesus Christ who did everything to protect life and who gave his life for us. (Adapted from the World Council of Churches-WCC pastoral letter).

COUNCIL OF CHURCHES IN ZAMBIA

Rev. Canon Emmanuel Chikoya
GENERAL SECRETARY

By Kabanda Mwansa

It is common knowledge that every government has to formulate and implement practical measures to protect its citizens against the Corona Virus that is spreading so rapidly across the globe. It is the responsibility of every government to devise concrete actions that will give hope and confidence to its citizenry. However, the pre-mature closing of public schools with only three weeks before they go into the recess is not one of the solutions that the Zambian government should have opted for. If anything, especially in remote areas, school children make effective agents of information dissemination to people that have limited access to current affairs, as they act as both mediators and interpreters of diverse public information. Consequently, the closure of public schools in Zambia will only disadvantage pupils from poor families, as parents from the well to do families will always find a way, mostly by engaging part-time teachers to teach their children behind closed doors.

The decision-makers did not make the right ruling of consulting various stakeholders in this fight against the Corona Virus, but were apparently pressured to emulate what other countries are doing. Seemingly, the Zambian decision-makers have been alarmed by the happenings in Europe that have been broadcasted globally by their influential media houses. By the time Zambia made a drastic decision to close public schools, the country never even had any case to refer to as the basis for the decision. If anything, African countries like Zambia should be in the forefront to educate European countries on how to deal with virus outbreaks, and not the other way round.

Zambia has in years battled with the Cholera epidemic, while also shielding itself from the Ebola Virus agitating in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. These two viruses are more deadly, and much more complicated to contain than the Corona Virus, thus Zambian experts have amassed great experience in how to deal with such viruses. Therefore, instead of copy-pasting how Europe is dealing with the Corona epidemic, Zambia should have been the one exporting knowledge on how to deal with such epidemics using the Cholera and Ebola experiences. The countries’ Epidemiologists should be at the forefront of using local experience in the country to scale it at the global level to help other needy countries experiencing such calamities for the first time in centuries. For example, the Chinese doctors that have battled the Corona virus in Wuhan, China have now shifted camp to Italy because they have gained enough experience from their situation.

One of the reasons most European countries closed public schools or rather shifted the learning spaces from schools to home was that, schools in most countries in Europe were just re-opening after a one-week winter break when the Corona Virus struck. As per European tradition during this school winter break, there is overwhelming cross border holidays by families, thus there was always going to be a big chance of pupils\families importing the Corona Virus from across the borders when schools re-opened.

Against this background, most European governments decided that school was going to be done online using different media platforms. Needless to mention here that most European schools have online learning spaces already established, thus, it was quite easy to make a decision that schools be physically closed, but remain open remotely through online interaction between pupils and teachers. This is also true for countries that have done the same in Africa, such as Egypt, Rwanda, and South Africa. These countries’ local technology is quite advanced such that even if public schools have been ordered to close, learning will somehow still take place through technological platforms deliberately installed by the respective governments.

Unfortunately, for Zambia, decisions were made without any consideration for the poor children who will now be languishing in the congested homes without any deliberate alternative on the part of the government. In some of the under-served communities in Zambia, the children are better off being at school because the situation at home is much worse than being at school. For example, in some under-served communities, it is quite difficult to get clean water to wash hands multiple times as recommended by the WHO, households can be more crowded and in some cases, up to 12 people will share a small house.

Thus, self-quarantine and social isolation as it is being propagated by Western methods is not practically possible in these under-served communities, and other high-density areas of the big cities. The pupils in these areas are more at risk of catching and spreading the Coronavirus if they stayed home than if they remained in school. This gives a greater opportunity for public institutions like boarding schools in the country to work as isolation centres where pupils are shielded from the rest of the community with strict rules of guiding the in and out human traffic.

As at now, it is common knowledge that Zambia does not have any domestically transmitted Corona Virus case, meaning that schools especially boarding schools should have been kept intact without exposing them to people that have traveled. Sending these pupils home will only expose them to the virus now that it is being imported into the country through people that have travelled to affected regions.

It is a fact that this virus originated from Asia, then to Europe and other parts of the world, meaning that what Zambia needed was to first impose a strict policy measure to cramp down on the travelling between Zambia and these affected regions. But alas! the people that should have been in the forefront to do this at the time when Zambia needed it most were busy on a campaign trail in Chilubi. Zambia needed to act decisively then when the virus was detected in China by imposing travel restrictions on the citizens and foreigners arriving from these countries.

Now, the policy makers want to show concern that they are on top of the game by closing schools, because that is the easiest of the measures to undertake. If the policy makers had consulted widely from the various stakeholders locally, then it should have been the independent private schools, the colleges and the universities that should have closed first before the public schools are affected. The independent private schools should have closed first because that is where the vulnerability of contracting the Corona Virus is higher because the parents in these schools have a greater probability of travelling to and from the affected regions. A child at Mabumbu Primary School located on the edge of the Bulozi Plain in Limulunga, should not be denied the chance to go to school because some parent at Lake Road Primary School in Lusaka had travelled to Paris, thus bringing the virus along.

Apart from the probability of parents travelling to the epicentres of the virus, pupils in these independent private schools have alternative learning spaces such as media that they can still utilize as opposed to pupils in public schools. After all, the decision makers have their children in these independent private schools, and seemingly care less if learning in public schools is effective or not. Using media as an alternative learning space is also true for the public and private colleges and universities. In these institutions, the teacher\student interaction can still take place using internet alternatives as opposed to the public schools.

Pupils in public schools have been given very limited information on the way forward, and how to navigate the Corona Virus period. For example, the authorities are not emphasising to the pupils that they are sending home, the importance of staying fit and positive. Pupils that have been told to stay home must be encouraged instead, to exercise a lot so that they cultivate higher levels of physical fitness and a positive mind-set. This is because it is scientifically reported that the virus is mostly killing people whose immune system is already weakened by lack of physical fitness, and the presence of other ailments.

Therefore, some physical exercises as opposed to sitting inactive in isolation could make a huge difference. Pupils should equally be encouraged to walk\jog from point A to point B when it concerns reasonable distances as opposed to using congested buses or trains. Thus, it is not just a question of sending pupils home, it is important to also give them such vital information as to stay fit, with a positive mentality, as opposed to fear and stress.

Generally, apart from the measures that have now been implemented as regards to travellers coming into the country from abroad. There is also need for the authorities to devise measures to check all travellers travelling between Lusaka and the rest of the country, and the Copperbelt and the rest of the country, or\and restricting travel internally.

This is because Lusaka and the Copperbelt have a higher probability of people contracting the virus because of the density of the populations in these areas, and having more people travelling abroad. For the rest of the country, the travel history remains low and containment is the most appropriate strategy, as efforts to engage with local community leaders as stakeholders before a full-blown crisis occurs in Zambia is key. As the only cases that have been reported so far in the country came from people who travelled back from abroad, then unity of purpose to prevent the virus from engulfing our already limping socio-economic landscape is the only option. However, it is too early to close public schools without a wide consultation from various stakeholders.

The author is a Zambian social commentator and a PhD research fellow at the Centre for Child and Youth Competence Development at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences.