FIDE: Churches and Mosques as Community Intermediaries

“Faith-based institutions”—the mosques, churches, and temples of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists—are everywhere in the poorer nations, and their numbers grow daily. The typical congregant of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, for example, is poor and black and female and African. In Ghana there are 2,500 Presbyterian churches—and Presbyterians are far outnumbered by Catholics.

Millions who cannot be reached by methods of mass communication and marketing common in the West go to church or mosque each week, and turn to that institution when they are in need of information or guidance, or food, clothing, and shelter.

The church or mosque, then, can become a community intermediary, registering community needs and relaying those needs to those who can help, and using its presence and influence to respond to those needs with information and services.

FIDE, The Faith and Development Network believes that religious networks, in partnership with educational agencies and other supporting institutions, can:

·         Help the  poorer nations in their efforts toward economic, educational, and social development.

·         Contribute to the understanding of those in the richer nations.

·         Avoid the dangers, inherent in such a venture, of imperialism and exploitation and cultural destruction.

The core assumption of FIDE, well tested now in Ghana, is that the concept of   “ministry,” a traditional mission of the religious institution, can be extended to include new developmental services for  congregation and community.

 The church can become a communication center, providing information on health practices, on improved agricultural methods, on income-generating opportunities.

The mosque can become a demonstration and a business center where new tools and technologies are displayed and made available to the community through small business and microcredit arrangements.

The individual church or mosque is the eye and ear of its community. Linked to other churches  in globe-spanning networks, connected to other agencies that can help, the small church in the small community becomes a large and powerful agent of transformation.

FIDE Ghana: The Agenda

The FIDE Ghana Planning Committee has set the following goals for its work:

• Meet regularly to forward the work of FIDE;
• Grow the FIDE network of churches and mosques to insure that all faith communities are represented;
• Create a growing network of partner and support agencies in Africa and throughout the world;
• Create an agenda of national needs to be met, and the information, products, and services required to meet them;
• With the universities and other partners, develop training programs to prepare entrepreneurs able to install and service new tools and technologies for those who need them;
• Develop relations with microfinance and microcredit agencies to help new social entrepreneurs and their customers finance their businesses and their purchases;
• Where feasible install computers and other communication technologies in churches and mosques to help in the relaying of community needs to those who can help and to relay what is learned to those in the community who need it;
• To become part of a Ghana-wide infrastructure for a future Open University of Ghana.

FIDE: The Work to be Done

Some 70 churches and mosques now make up FIDE Ghana’s central planning committee.

The FIDE Planning Committee has set the following goals:

·         Grow the FIDE network of churches and mosques and meet and communicate to develop FIDE’s agenda of action.

·         Create a network of partner and support agencies in Africa  and the world.

·         Develop training programs to prepare entrepreneurs—women as well as men--to be able to sell, install, and service new tools and technologies for the poor.

·         Develop agreements with microfinance and microloan agencies to help new social entrepreneurs and their customers finance their businesses and their purchases.

·         Where feasible, install computers and other communication technologies in churches to help in the relaying of community needs to those who can help, and to relay what is learned to those in the community who need it

·         Become part of the Ghana-wide infrastructure for a new National Open University.

(below) Mosques and churches, large and small, elaborate and simple, occupy a central place in every Ghanaian village, town, and urban neighborhood.