(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat sounds its annual call to the people of the Caribbean Community to join Caribbean Wellness Day (CWD) celebrations under the theme ‘Love that Body – Building the Foundation for Healthy Lifestyles’ with a focus on addressing the prevention and control of NCDs among the Regions children.
Caribbean Wellness Day, an outcome of the Port of Spain Declaration ‘Uniting to Stop the Epidemic of NCDs’, provides an opportunity to increase the awareness of the NCD burden in the Caribbean; mobilize and strengthen public, private, and civil society partnerships for NCD prevention and control; promote multicountry, multisectoral activities in support of wellness; and to showcase national and community level activities to promote healthy living and encourage residents to develop good health practices.
The first four years of CWD focused on raising the awareness of the burden of NCDs at both the Regional and National levels and on getting countries to prioritize NCDs in national plans. Over the next few years, the focus of CWD observations will be on preventing and controlling NCDs throughout the life course, beginning this year with a focus on children as the foundation for a healthy and productive workforce and aged population. As such Member States have agreed to develop, implement and strengthen initiatives to address the specific issues of preventing and controlling NCDs among children.
In particular Member States will be:
• Developing and strengthening healthy public policies that will foster and protect healthy lifestyles among children from birth to age eighteen (18). This would include policies that address nutrition, physical activity, and tobacco and alcohol control.
• Creating supportive environments that make the easy choice the healthy choice, such as providing facilities for adequate and appropriate physical activities, smoke free spaces etc.
• Re-orienting services by mainstreaming basic NCD prevention and control services, e.g. scheduled periodic screening for risk factors, into other sectors addressing child issues such as education, youth and sports etc.
• Building personal health skills among children through education, information and communication, so they make informed choices and become advocates for change for healthier lifestyles.
• Empowering communities to become partners in leading and supporting health promoting initiatives at community level that will foster healthy choices and lifestyles.
• Building alliances with all sectors and all possible stakeholders including the State, private sector, civil society, faith-based organisations and the media that will provide an opportunity for collaborative efforts to make the healthy choice the easier choice for our children.
Member States will also be developing healthy public ‘child specific’ policies such as school health policies to support improved nutrition in schools; building physical activity facilities in schools and communities to encourage increased physical activity; developing school nursing programmes to provide early screening and early interventions to prevent and control NCDs among children and creating supportive environments such as smoke free and alcohol free spaces for children.
In this way the Community will work steadfastly to invest in the health of the people of the Region in keeping with the Regional vision – ‘The Health of the Region is the Wealth of Region’.
