Belize Adopts Caribbean Moves Framework to Address Non-Communicable Diseases

Yesterday, we told you of the Caribbean Moves Framework that Belize’s Ministry of Health and Wellness has agreed to be a part of.  It is a framework that all CARICOM member states have agreed to take on, in an effort to tackle the increasing rate of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).  Jamaica was used as a pilot-project back in 2018, and in a virtual meeting yesterday, the technical teams from each CARICOM country met to revise the successes, and the gaps experienced in Jamaica.  Technical Officer, Kathleen Sho told Love News that Belize will tailor their approach.

Kathleen Cho, Technical Advisor: “We’re using or relying on interventions that are evidence-based, and hence why Jamaica presented, and we would adopt and fit according to the needs of our countries. So particularly looking at the human resources available, the financial resources, and also looking at the local context. So as I mentioned earlier this would be a tailored implementation rollout. Just to stress though that we have been preparing ourselves as the Ministry of Health and Wellness for what we would say the Belize Moves. For example we have had initiatives at different levels, the community level because community engagement is important. We have the schools and we have workplaces. So for example, at the community level, we have basic health screenings, we have outreach health fairs that would bring out different audiences to get to know their numbers.“

Sho further explained that the Ministry of Health is already collaborating with other agencies to spread awareness and practices of healthy eating, particularly in the schools.

Kathleen Cho, Technical Advisor: “At the school level right now we have the “Healthy Habits, Healthy Schools, Healthy Belize” initiative and we have been working in partnership with the Ministry of Education and working with 18 schools in the Belize district. I believe earlier this year we had the Nutrition Expo which was a very good, you know, initiative that brought out schools, we were able to highlight some of the nutrition aspects that we’ve been working with and that’s already out there and we’re bringing other schools who maybe are not part of that but are being interested in taking part in that initiative as well.”

We will have more on the Caribbean Moves initiatives in subsequent news reports.