Regional Buddhist Leadership Initiative

Through its Regional Buddhist Leadership Initiative, UNICEF has helped the Buddhist response to HIV/AIDS prevention and care in the Mekong subregion to grow from a few isolated groups of committed monks and nuns to a high-profile national and subregional phenomenon in just a few years.

A growing number of Buddhist monks, nuns and lay teachers, in the Mekong subregion and as far away as Bhutan, are employing ideas and skills they have gained through the Initiative to carry out low-cost, sustainable prevention and care activities in their local communities. They have made significant contributions from prevention with young people to providing spiritual counselling, food and essentials to people with HIV/AIDS.

And the value of their involvement goes far beyond what the monks, nuns and teachers do themselves. The examples they set, the messages they send out, and the working partnerships they build with the lay community, can revolutionize people's attitudes to HIV/AIDS and the people it has affected.

Calling on Tradition

The Regional Buddhist Leadership Initiative grows from a core of Buddhist tradition and belief. Buddhist ideals like moderation, self-discipline and compassion are harmonize well with the requisites of HIV prevention and creating enabling environments for people with HIV/AIDS.

A Lao monk learns about HIV/AIDS at a UNICEF-supported workshop

The traditional role of the temple as the spiritual heart of the village provides many opportunities for programming. For example:

  • Monks receive donations of food and household goods, particularly on religious holidays. These can be shared with families affected by HIV/AIDS.
  • During the Buddhist Lent (July-October), many young boys stay at the temple for meditation and spiritual instruction from the monks. In Thailand, some monks have incorporated HIV/AIDS awareness and compassion-building into the program.
  • Most male Buddhists ordain as monks at some time in their life – almost always during Buddhist Lent when they are relatively young. This provides an opportunity to raise their awareness of HIV/AIDS and prevention.
For many disadvantaged male children and youth, ordaining as a monk offers support and the chance of an education
  • Temple schools provide education for novices as well as for the poorest and for orphaned and abandoned children (including a growing number of children affected by HIV/AIDS). A number of temple schools in the subregion are already including prevention education in their curricula. The temple schools system has enormous potential in HIV/AIDS prevention among vulnerable young people.
  • Religious festivals and temple fairs can draw almost the whole community to the temple. They are excellent times to disseminate HIV/AIDS messages.
  • Some temples have made themselves hospices and refuges, providing both spiritual and medical support, although the priority and reality are overwhelmingly community-based care with clergy working in outreach.
  • The influence and respect that temple abbots command in the community is very effective for mobilizing senior community leaders and administrators.

Nuns

In the Theravada Buddhist countries of the Mekong subregion, nuns take many fewer vows than monks and are therefore considered lower in the religious hierarchy. As a result, they are often overlooked as a resource. However, in some places, like Wat Sok Pa Luang in Lao PDR, nuns have become renowned meditation teachers. In many parts of East Asia (which follow Mahayana schools of Buddhism), nuns have equal status with monks. One particular advantage nuns have in HIV/AIDS programming is that they can talk more intimately with lay women.

The Sangha Metta Project

The Sangha Metta Project has been a source of inspiration, training and other technical assistance for the Regional Buddhist Leadership Initiative.

Started by a lay Buddhist teacher in the Lanna campus of Mahamakut Buddhist University in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand in 1998, Sangha Metta ("compassionate monks") provides training and support to a growing body of Thai monks and nuns (numbering 1,500 by mid-2001).

Sangha Metta training covers awareness-raising; prevention education; participatory social management skills and tools; encouraging tolerance and compassion for people affected HIV/AIDS in the community; and providing direct spiritual and economic support to people and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

To help trainees develop their understanding of HIV/AIDS and the problems threatening their community, Sangha Metta presents HIV/AIDS within the framework of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism: suffering (Dukkha), the cause of suffering (Samudaya) the cessation of suffering (Nirodha) and the path leading to the cessation of suffering (Magga).

Back in their communities, Sangha Metta-trained monks and nuns have applied their skills in activities that fit local needs and resources. Active networking, seminars and a quarterly newsletter keep fresh ideas circulating.

Buddhist monks are involving themselves in many aspects of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support

Taking a Religious Response to Scale

Establishing a national-scale Buddhist religious response requires involving and including both the internal governing structures of the Buddhist Sangha and the government departments or mass organizations that oversee religious affairs.

The traditional role of the temple as the spiritual heart of the village provides many opportunities for programming. For example:

In 2000, Cambodia became the first Buddhist country in the world to develop a detailed National Policy for the Buddhist response to HIV/AIDS. The policy was drafted by the most senior representatives of the Cambodian Sangha and the Ministry of Cults and Religions. UNICEF and the Sangha Metta Project provided key technical inputs including the organization of a national seminar during May 2000 as a forum for discussions.

Buddhist universities, where monks study doctrine as well as contemporary subjects, have an important role to play in expanding the Buddhist response. Sangha Metta has used the Buddhist university system to reach sizeable numbers of young monks, before they are assigned to temples around the country.

The Buddhist Response in the Region

With UNICEF support, the Sangha Metta Project has provided seminars, training and advice on HIV/AIDS-related activities for monks and nuns in China, Cambodia and Lao PDR and for ethnic Shan monks along the Thai-Myanmar border. It has hosted study visits and training sessions for Bhutanese monks, and hopes in the future to share its experiences with Muslim, Christian and other religious leaders.

Cambodia

Cambodia's new National Policy on the Buddhist religious response to HIV/AIDS (see above) has added a new dimension, as well as new impetus, to the grassroots movement for HIV/AIDS prevention and care among monks and nuns. Temples play an important role in caring for the country's many orphans and abandoned children, the legacy of decades of armed conflict and now HIV/AIDS.

In May 2001, the Supreme Patriarchs of Cambodia's two main Buddhist sects, accompanied by the Cambodian Minister of Cults and Religions, were invited by UNICEF to visit Thailand in order to study the activities of the country's Buddhist monks and nuns in the HIV/AIDS response.

His Holiness Somdech Tepwong and His Holiness Somdech Bua Krey, Cambodian Supreme Patriarchs, in an audience with His Holiness Phra Yan Sangworn, Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, during their UNICEF-supported study visit to Thailand

The delegation visited the National AIDS Bureau, met with representatives of the Department of Religious Affairs, attended a meeting on the participation of Thai Buddhist nuns in HIV/AIDS prevention and care at Mahapajapati Theri College in Bangkok, before heading to the north of Thailand to visit monks and nuns active in HIV/AIDS care and support. The visit also included an historic audience with His Excellency The Supreme Patriarch of Thailand.

UNICEF also organized a public forum on "Dhamma in the Time of AIDS" at Bangkok's Thammasat University, giving the visitors a chance to interact with leading Thai Buddhist thinkers, media and members of the public. The forum led to discussion in the Thai media about Thailand's own policies on HIV/AIDS and religion.

China

Sangha Metta has worked through the Prefectural and Municapal AIDS Committees to conduct two seminars for monks in the Dai national group in Xi Shuang Ban Na prefecture Yunnan province, in 1999-2000. At the second seminar, the trainees were all teachers in temple schools who wished to learn about using the Lifeskills approach to teach children and community members about HIV/AIDS.

Some examples of actions by monks and nuns in Xi Shuang Ban Na:

  • Children in temple schools and children attending language and culture programs at the temple provided with Lifeskills-based HIV/AIDS education
  • Monks give spiritual counselling and material support to people with HIV/AIDS
  • Monks have produced their own HIV/AIDS education materials in the Dai language
  • Monks have used sermons and events to teach community members about HIV/AIDS, and even visited remote communities for special training sessions.
Chinese Dai monks at a workshop on HIV/AIDS

Lao PDR

In Lao PDR, the Religious Department of the Lao Front for National Construction is responsible for monks, nuns, novices and temples, along with the internal Sangha governing body. UNICEF Lao PDR has supported the Lao Front for National Construction and senior monks in developing the Metta Thamm Project. The Project was launched in September 2001 with an orientation training workshop for 80 monks, nuns and novices at a forest retreat during Buddhist Lent, followed by training for fourth-year student monks at the Buddhist College in Vientiane. Plans for the next phase include study visits, an action plan and a small activities scheme for temples.

The Mekong ...

UNICEF has funded study visits to monks' HIV/AIDS projects in Thailand for government officers from Viet Nam and Myanmar and for Catholic and Buddhist leaders from Viet Nam. UNICEF plans to launch Buddhist Leadership Initiative programs in Myanmar and Viet Nam during 2002, modified to suit national and local environments.

UNICEF plans to launch the Buddhist Leadership Initiative program in Myanmar and Viet Nam in 2002, modified to the national and local environments.

... and Beyond

UNICEF Bhutan held a participatory workshop on the role of monks in development in late 2001. The workshop built on a UNICEF-supported Religion and Health project, and two earlier study tours to Thailand to look at monks working on development issues. The workshop was supported by Bhutan's National Council for Religious Affairs and Department of Health.

While the topic of the workshop was health and social issues, including HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, the focus was on broader issues, including economic well-being and development. The Dharma-based analysis developed by Sangha Metta convenor Laurie Maunde to promote social action on HIV/AIDS, was adapted to address these broader issues.