Rachel Carnegie is the Chaplain at All Souls College. Prior to this, she worked from 1985 in international development, with a focus on health promotion, humanitarian relief, and the role of faith communities. Serving with UNICEF and various NGOs, as advisor to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and as Executive Director of the Anglican Alliance, she has worked globally, including on HIV and AIDS, Ebola, and Covid-19, particularly through faith-based responses.
In this talk, she takes a practitioner’s perspective on these recent crises of epidemic disease. She analyses how local communities and faith groups have responded, and how, in a context often characterised by mutual distrust, secular public health actors, including WHO, have engaged with the role of faith. The talk will consider critically the potential and risks of faith communities being involved as distinctive civil society partners in epidemic and pandemic preparedness, prevention and response.
