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Strengthening Partnership with Faith Actors in Family Planning

On Tuesday, December 12, 2023, from 8:00-9:30 AM EST / 13:00 – 14:30 Dakar /16:00 – 17:30 Nairobi, CCIH Sponsored a webinar: Strengthening Partnership with Faith Actors in Family Planning. Faith actors are diverse in their approaches to family planning, ranging from supportive, to hesitant, to oppositional, depending on actor, context, and family planning method. Many faith actors are willing and open to working on family planning. Finding entry points where they exist for engagement and collaboration is crucial to ensure better health outcomes.

Key Materials

Moderator & Speakers

The webinar was moderated by Maria Augusta Carrasco, MPP, MPH, PhD, Senior Implementation Sciences Technical Advisor, Research and Technical Utilization Division, Office of Population and Reproductive Health, USAID. Maria is a behavioral scientist with 15 years of experience designing, implementing, and managing capacity building and public health programs. In her current role at USAID, she works on the High Impact Practices (HIPs) in Family Planning and the Research for Scalable Solutions (R4S) project, which focuses on FP implementation sciences research.

Mona Bormet, MPH, CHES serves as the Program Director for Christian Connections for International Health and the Program Director for the Faith Engagement Team of the USAID-funded MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership. She directs a global portfolio of initiatives that improve timely access to quality health services in communities and facilities, by working with faith-based partners. Mona received the American Public Health Association International Health Section Mid-Career Award in 2023. She was one of the lead authors of this strategic planning guide and will be giving an overview of the process to create the guide.

Clemence Nkulikiyinka, MBA is Country Director for World Relief Rwanda. Clemence has 15 years experience in international development, church engagement, and faith actor engagement in Christian majority contexts. She serves as one of World Relief’s Gender focal persons for International Programs, and is engaged in development and implementation of Church Empowerment Zones and Outreach Groups Initiative. She supported seven country teams to develop their gender mainstreaming plans, integrating gender into their operations and programs.

Sheikh Saliou Mbacké is President of the CRSD (Cadre des Religieux pour la Santé et le Développement) (Religious Association for Health and Development), a Senegalese organization, and an international consultant. He served as the continental coordinator for Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa from 2003, based initially in Geneva, then Nairobi, and then in Dakar. He is an advisor to the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) for a family health project in Senegal. A spiritual leader of the Mouride family, a core institution of Senegalese Sufi Islam, he has lived within that tradition since birth. He was educated in Touba in the Islamic Qur’anic tradition, then at the University of Tunis and University of Salamanca.

Yoram Siame, MPH, MSc serves as Director of Advocacy Planning and Development at the Churches Health Association of Zambia (CHAZ). Before joining CHAZ, Yoram co-founded Youth Alive Zambia in which he managed HIV and AIDS programs. He works with religious leaders, training them to advocate for family planning in their communities and to their governments. Yoram has appeared on global stages, including giving a recent TED Talk on Undoing Our Violent Inclinations