Correlation Between Faith and Risky Behavior in OVC Population Catholic Relief Services Tanzania May 5, 2008

Do faith values matter? Is this a quality of life area that should be considered? Or Is Religiosity in OVC Protective Against Risky Behaviors?

Problem Statement There is a suggestion that religiosity or attitudes and behaviors that come from being socialized in a religious community, serve to protect OVC from undesirable outcomes.

Many OVC support programs in sub- Saharan Africa who incorporate faith values in their prevention programs rely on anecdotal accounts of the extent of protection afforded by the participation in an active religious community.

2007 OVC Evaluation

Design and Method Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, and Haiti. Education, health, nutrition, HIV education, religiosity, and overall quality of life. Examined the vulnerability of children to adverse outcomes by background characteristics so that the CRS programs target OVC at higher risks.

Design/Methods OVC aged and guardians of OVC aged Random selection of 225 respondents from each group. A two-stage sampling approach was adopted using PPS. Rwanda and Tanzania included control groups of OVC.

Results Over 90% of OVC and guardians of OVC 7-12, stated that “faith in God helps me”. Risky behavior, which includes sexual activity, alcohol consumption, and drug use, were all less commonly reported by OVC that regularly attended religious services.

Results Kenya was the only country where religious attendees did not uniformly report less risky behaviors than their counterparts. The oldest (15-17) Kenyan OVC and younger (13-14) OVC from Tanzania were significantly less likely to have engaged in sexual activity if they attended religious services regularly.

Results Older OVC from Haiti and Rwanda that attended religious services regularly were significantly less likely to consume alcohol. Rwandan OVC that did not attend religious services regularly were significantly more likely to report drug use.

Conclusions and Application to Improve Implementation The study demonstrates the perceived importance of religion and the possible contribution of faith to well-being of OVC. Religiosity is consistently associated with the positive outcome variables used in this analysis. Whether it is OVC assisted by CRS or OVC from the control group, the children that attend religious services regularly are doing better than the children who do not.

Actions Taken Based on these findings the program implementers have reassessed and where appropriate, modified the OVC lifeskills curricula to include faith values. The findings also suggest the potential importance of incorporating spiritual well- being as a domain in OVC quality of life assessments tools such as the CSI.