Developing a National Religious Profile

ARDA LEARNING RESOURCES

Lesson 1: Gathering Information

Developing A National Religious Profile

Lesson 1: Gathering Information

Med Tech is the medical technology branch of CLC. Over the last several years, we have worked closely with medical practitioners around the world in order to improve health care. Our work has been very successful and has not gone unnoticed. We are now working to develop instructional and cultural awareness materials for Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
National Profiles Project
One of the daunting challenges an MSF doctor or volunteer faces is that of understanding and working in a very different culture from their own. The National Profiles Project involves developing resources that can be used to educate and inform MSF doctors and volunteers about the countries in which they will be working. You have been hired to develop a religious profile guide about a particular country. The guide should help doctors and volunteers understand the religious climate of a country in order for them to be better prepared to work within that country.

This lesson will guide you through the process of gathering the information needed to develop a detailed national religious profile.

Step 1 –Choose a Country

The first step in developing a national religious profile will be to determine exactly which country you will be profiling. You may already have some interest in a particular nation. However, you can also select a country from the list of nations located on the Association of Religion Data Archives’ (the ARDA’s) National Profiles website.

After browsing the list of nations on the ARDA’s website, write down the name of the nation you have decided to profile for this project.

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Now that you have selected a nation, the next steps will guide you through the process of gathering the information necessary to create your national religious profile.

Step 2 –Gathering Summary Information

The CIA’s World Factbookcontains a wealth of information about many of the nations in the world. Using the online version of the Factbook, located here, gather the following summary information about the country you selected in Step 1 above. First, select your country from the drop-down menu directly below “The World Factbook.”

Map of the Country: Print a map of the country you have chosen to profile.

Climate:______

Age Structure: ______

HIV Prevalence: ______

Major Infectious Diseases: ______

Official Language: ______

Literacy Rate: ______

Unemployment Rate: ______

Percentage of Population under Poverty Line: ______

Now, return to the ARDA National Profiles website. Locate the country you selected and click on its link. Using the summary information provided by the ARDA, record the following information for use in creating your national profile.

Population: ______

Life Expectancy: ______

Per Capita Income: ______

Countries with Shared Borders: ______

Read through the history section of your nation’s ARDA profile and write down any information that relates to the religious profile of the nation.

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You may also want to compare the summary data of your country to that of the United States or another country of your choosing. Therefore, it may be helpful to create a table similar to the one below in order to keep track of the information you have gathered. (Hint: You can view information on two countries at the same time by selecting an additional country from the drop-down menu labeled “Compare country to:” in the National Profiles box.)

Your Country: / Country: / Country: / Country:
Population
Age Structure
Life Expectancy
Unemployment Rate
Literacy Rate
% Under Poverty Line
Per Capita Income
Diseases
HIV Prevalence

Step 3 – Gathering Information on Religious Adherents

Return to the ARDA National Profiles website. Working with the profile site for your country, click on the tab labeled “Adherents.”

Using the data reported for religious adherents and the chart-making capabilities of Excel, create a pie chart for your selected country. (Hint: You may wish to combine adherents of religious groups representing less than 1% of the population into an “Other” category.) Print out your pie chart.

Next, using the data reported for religious adherentsand the chart-making capabilities of Excel, create a pie chart for the world. Print out this pie chart as well.

Referring to the data and the charts that you printed above, write a paragraph that summarizes the data for your country and any interesting differences between your country and the world.

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Finally, read through the “Religious Demography” section and take note of any information that may be helpful in the development of your national religious profile.

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