B.C. Dodge & R. Mordant Mahon talk to Reverend Amy in this episode of “What a Relief!” — IRUSA’s official podcast.
This week B.C. & Mordant welcome Reverend Amy Gopp, Vice President for IMA World Health, a global and ecumenical public health organization. She is an ordained minister of the Christian Church with two decades of experience in faith-based relief and development—and we think she’s awesome!
IMA stands for Inter-Church Medical Assistance, and the organization has been around for almost 60 years. They have worked all over the developing world, and began as a mission organization that helped churches get supplies to their churches overseas. “Now, we are a very large NGO doing public health across the world,” she says.
In this episode, she shares some of her organization’s biggest initiatives, such as sexual and gender based violence. “We really see that as a global pandemic,” she says. “We started the We Will Speak Out campaign and coalition to bring faith communities together with one voice to unite around breaking the silence around gender based violence.”
One in every four women in the U.S. will experience some type of sexual or gender based violence in her lifetime. Globally, that number is one in three. Rev. Amy speaks passionately about this topic, urging listeners to consider how this could be affecting people close to them. “They’re sitting in our congregations,” she says.
Tune in to be a part of this important discussion on creating safe spaces. Learn surprising statistics in the faith community and what they mean in the fight against gender based violence. In the mix, there are statistics that signal hope—like the fact that over 80% of those surveyed said that with the right training and resources, they would speak out.
“There is no other faith based community doing this. We are a multi-faith coalition working to break the silence and speak out against sexual and gender-based violence.”
LISTEN. SHARE. REPEAT.
