IN COLLABORATION WITH JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH, HARM REDUCTION COALITION LAUNCHED A UNIQUE INITIATIVE TO BUILD BRIDGES BETWEEN HARM REDUCTION AND FAITH COMMUNITIES.

Communities of faith and their leadership possess significant influence and potential to reshape discourse on the drugs issue and opioid crisis through the promotion of theological praxis rooted in liberation, reform, and justice.

Since its inception in Fall 2017, Faith in Harm Reduction has contributed thought leadership, vision, and direction for overdose and other harm reduction advocacy events and conferences. We are dedicated to building capacity and mobilizing communities at the intersection of harm reduction and faith-based organizing. Born from conversations with communities of faith, harm reduction organizations, and unions of people who use drugs throughout the United States, Faith in Harm Reduction fills a unique role as connector, community mobilizer, and capacity builder, fostering innovative-and previously untapped—cross-sector collaborations to expand and strengthen harm reduction in principal, practice, and policy.

OUR OBJECTIVES

• Build a network of faith leaders that will advance responses to the overdose crisis that are rooted in compassion, dignity, and social justice

• Center the leadership and wisdom of people with lived experience, particularly among communities of color

• Advocate for spiritual and theological approach to address the opioid crisis and other harms of racialized drug policy

• Support public policies that expand harm reduction and other community led, evidence-based health and wellness opportunities for people who use drugs

• Challenge the root causes that increase vulnerability to drug related harm

• Encourage a movement of healing, resilience, and resistance among people who use drugs, the harm reduction community, and our allies