”People need things. How can we help?”

This coronavirus pandemic has many aspects. The virus has confirmed the oneness of mankind – we are all in this together. To the surprise of some, it has shown that love for, and concern for, our fellow human beings is a fundamental consideration in our lives. This pandemic has challenged our material well-being, and has brought forth a spiritual response. At the same time, it has made obvious the need for more co-ordination and co-operation between nations.

One important response to the pandemic has been the way in which service to others is now being seen as the most important kind of work. The general population is openly showing its appreciation of many others who have often been taken for granted, such as carers, nurses, doctors, and ambulance staff. These people are potentially sacrificing their own lives by treating or caring for patients suffering from the virus, often without adequate personal protection. Literally hundreds of doctors, nurses, carers, hospital porters and so on have died during this outbreak – including retired people who had come back specially to offer their services during the emergency. People are now also beginning to appreciate the fact that shop workers, delivery drivers, food packers, farmers, growers, waste collectors and many others have essential roles which make life more bearable, or even possible, for the rest of us. At the same time, ordinary people are offering their own services in huge numbers: delivering food to people in isolation, providing comfort at the end of a telephone, making masks and gowns, volunteering at food banks, and in numerous other initiatives. We can take heart from this outpouring of concern for others.

Most countries have struggled to provide an immediate and effective response to all the different aspects of the pandemic. In the U.K., local groups of volunteers sprang into being long before the government-organised volunteer force could be implemented. The more developed countries have a strong government organisation to call on but many other countries do not have the administrative infrastructure that is common in Europe or in North America. In some places without local government capacity, the grass roots Bahá’í administration has been able to step in. We are hearing stories of places where the Local Spiritual Assembly (which is the elected Bahá’í body in any town, village or city) has organised a proper community response to a particular need. For example, in India, the unannounced, draconian, nature of the lockdown led many people to suddenly lose their livelihoods, and in many places, the Local Spiritual Assembly organised Bahá’ís to give migrant workers lifts back to their home villages (sometimes over a hundred miles away), and also organised food parcels for those who could not be transported in time. To Bahá’ís, service to others is a natural part of life. It is also part of the spiritual life: “Order your lives in accordance with the first principle of the divine teaching, which is love. Service to humanity is service to God.” And in another place in the Bahá’í Writings we read: “This is worship: to serve mankind and to minister to the needs of the people. Service is prayer.”

In the United States, young Bahá’ís, who have been used to organising themselves in acts of service to the community - which they have already been doing as part of the activities of the “Junior Youth Groups” they were in - have been responding to a wide variety of needs caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The photograph at the top shows some young Bahá’ís in Texas, with support from their mother, making masks which they are then distributing to their neighbours. Bahá’í youth in Chicago have been creating informative videos about health measures in the different languages commonly spoken in the community. They are also assisting families who face language barriers in accessing government services. Such barriers exist in many other areas, such as in Prince William County, Virginia, where many parents, without access to translators, had been unable to adequately access online school programmes for their children. “At first we thought that children missing classes was related to internet access, but we were wrong,” says a youth from one of the groups. “It was actually because the parents had no idea of what the school arrangements were.” These youth, having identified the families requiring additional assistance, are now holding regular online sessions to share the necessary information in various languages and to assist their peers with their
assignments.

Another example comes from Nicaragua. Even before concerns about the global outbreak were in the public consciousness, a Bahá’í-inspired community banking programme there took the initiative to implement measures for the safe handling of money and made arrangements for transactions to take place online and by telephone. “These banks are founded on the Bahá’í principles of service and care for the well-being of all,” says the programme’s national co-ordinator. “So, with the economic challenges and the evolving health crisis, we have not only been conscious of continuing vital services that support the economic life of the community, but also of ensuring that our operations do not put people at risk.” She continued: “We recognise that we are not just businesses looking to our own affairs but we are here to serve the common welfare.”

As so many parts of the world have introduced some form of lockdown, many of the enterprises generating income and providing services to society have been at a standstill, and it is thought that many may not survive in their present form. One of the results of the disease may therefore be a re-building and re-balancing of society, in which monetary, social and economic arrangements are subservient to the needs of the community, rather than being their masters. The underlying response should not be: ”People need things. How can we make money out of them?”, but rather: ”People need things. How can we help?”