"God Helps Us Endure": The Role of Spiritual Resilience in Managing Climate Stress in Nairobi's Informal Settlements

Background: Spiritual resilience is one of the key strengths people rely on when facing highly precarious living conditions and severe economic and environmental adversity. This resilience, rooted in religious beliefs and practices, emerges as a crucial support system for resource-limited religious communities, for example, in Nairobi's informal settlements of Kibera and Mathare. Residents of informal settlements are largely excluded from formal services such as water, sanitation, electricity, social programs, formal labor markets, and access to public health services. Extreme weather events, including severe heat, drought, floods, and fires, worsen these living conditions. Yet, in this environment, residents rely on spiritual frameworks to navigate daily hardships exacerbated by inadequate access to basic services and recurring extreme weather events.

Methods: This qualitative study examined the influence of spiritual resilience on women during extreme weather events in Kibera and Mathare. Over one year, 144 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with women aged 18 and older, selected through purposive maximum variation sampling. Carried out by trained community health promoters (CHPs), the conversational-style interviews took place in Swahili or English under the supervision of the principal investigator. Interviews focused on exploring resilience strategies in the face of climate-related stressors. The principal investigator and a research team of five transcribed the interviews and performed thematic analysis within a grounded theory framework.

Results: The findings indicate that women engage in three key spiritual practices to cope with extreme mental and physical stress: prayer, reading the Bible, and seeking help from religious leaders. Participants also sought support from religious leaders and institutions for practical assistance, such as temporary shelter and food, after an extreme weather event. Many participants reported that God and the Bible provide them with the coping skills to manage increased pressure during extreme weather events. When faced with illnesses affecting their mental or physical well-being (or that of family members), particularly those exacerbated by climate change, these women often turn to prayer either instead of, or alongside, conventional medical care.

Conclusion: Spiritual practices, including prayer, scripture reading, and help-seeking from religious leaders, are crucial, yet often overlooked factors essential to the resilience of women in Nairobi's informal settlements, who are significantly impacted by extreme weather events. resilience. While not replacing basic services and essential resources, such spiritual practices can be incorporated into health and climate adaptation programs and policies, potentially enhancing resilience among these vulnerable populations. By aligning our research with the conference’s theme, we advocate for transformative change in policy and practice, suggesting that integrating spiritual resilience into Kenya’s National Climate Change Action Plan (2023-2027) may bolster the resilience of communities facing climate-induced disasters and address climate-driven displacement and mobility. The Action Plan emphasizes the necessity of empowering community stakeholders in vulnerable regions. This should include religious leaders, who play a critical role at the intersection of spiritual support and disaster relief. Churches, in particular, can act as entry points for policies, programs, and funding funneled through religious institutions.