Caribbean

Our work in the Caribbean dates back to the early 1970s, beginning with a program to incorporate essential health and nutrition information into the basal readers for primary school students in Jamaica. Since the late 1990s, we have been working with United Nations agencies and many Caribbean partners—ministries of education, universities and teachers colleges and non-governmental organizations—to promote health and prevent illness and injury for the region’s young people. Through these collaborative partnerships—along with training and assistance, advocacy and leadership activities, and products and tools that are steeped in Caribbean culture and history—we aim to strengthen the education sector’s ability to deliver health programs.

Our initial efforts concentrated on the healthy development of youth through skills-based health education, but over time it became clear that a major advocacy effort was needed to encourage policy and attitude change at the highest levels of the education and health systems in the region. HHD’s advocacy activities over the last decade have focused on empowering key influential groups—government and business leaders, health educators, and people living with HIV and AIDS—to increase their efforts to promote prevention, treatment, and care. Through a strategic alliance that includes HHD, the education sector is now embracing a comprehensive approach to HIV and AIDS aimed at promoting and protecting the health of students and staff, and mitigating the impact of HIV on the education system itself.

Local staff in our office in Barbados, located within the UN House, work to promote exchange among countries in the region and build their collective capacity to effectively address HIV and AIDS and other imminent health issues.