NY Times Covers BHR Partner Word of Life International’s Work in Promoting Vaccinations

Bronx Health REACH partner Word of Life International was recently featured in a The New York Times article, ‘A Safe Space’: Black Pastors Promote Vaccinations from the Pulpit, about the work Word of Life International is doing in the Bronx getting people vaccinated against the Coronavirus. ‘Listen, we have suffered together, now let’s get vaccinated so we can stay safe and so life can return to normal,’ said Pastor John John S. Udo-Okon, pastor of World of Life International Church in the Bronx. “Pastor Udo-Okon, his wife and children all got sick with Covid-19 in the first weeks of the pandemic, he said. Telling members of the congregation about his experience with the virus and the vaccine made it easier to persuade them, he said.

“It makes us authentic when we approach people: ‘Listen, we have suffered together, now let’s get vaccinated so we can stay safe and so life can return to normal,’” he said. At the recent food pantry event, the crowd filed out of the storefront church and lined up on the sidewalk to take canned goods, dried pasta and fresh produce from volunteers who stood before towers of cardboard boxes and thick plastic bags. Pastor Udo-Okon told the crowd: “I took Johnson & Johnson, my son took Johnson & Johnson, my wife took Pfizer. The F.D.A. has given final approval to the Pfizer vaccine, and it says all of the vaccines are safe.”

Read the full article.

Photo: Thalia Juarez for The New York Times