May 7th 2026 | 9:30AM - 12:00PM AST 

This proposed webinar, “Taking Stock: Wins, Gaps, and the Road Ahead for Healthy Food Policy in the Caribbean” in collaboration with PAHO, CARPHA, and the OECS Commission provides a timely opportunity to highlight policy progress, share lessons learned, and strengthen collective efforts toward regional NCD prevention and control. 

The objectives of the webinar are to:

1. Examine progress and key challenges in the implementation of fiscal policies including sweetened beverage (SB) taxes and subsidies across the Caribbean 
2. Identify lessons learned from school nutrition policy development and implementation, including navigating engagement with the private sector (with an emphasis on health neutral/health promoting companies) 
3. Highlight challenges, progress and opportunities in other key food policy areas including: TFA regulation; FOPWL, marketing of breast milk substitutes and marketing to children. 
4. Reflect on approaches and tools to address the cross cutting challenge of undue influence and conflict of interest in food policy implementation 
5. Explore actionable recommendations to accelerate policy progress, including the application of innovative research approaches and findings

View/download the flyer with details of participants here.

We are thrilled to invite youth advocates in your organization to participate in a Caribbean Youth Voices: Healthy Caribbean Futures Advocacy Training. A virtual 3-part training hosted by the Healthy Caribbean Coalition with support from the Commonwealth Foundation. The training ultimately seeks to strengthen the capacity of youth and young persons living with NCDs to effectively participate in NCD/health-related decision-making processes.

Training Details

• Saturday May 9th 2026 - 10:00AM - 12:00PM AST
• Saturday May 16th 2026 - 10:00AM - 12:00PM AST
• Saturday May 23rd 2026 - 10:00AM - 12:00PM AST

*The training has a limited capacity and youth must be available to attend all 3 trainings to participate. 

Training Objectives

• Explore what NCDs look like in the Caribbean and why they matter to young people
• Strengthen Capacity: Build your skills to engage meaningfully in health and policy decision-making
• Use the “Our Views, Our Voices (OVOV)” to explore why telling your story is important to support change and guide your advocacy
• Get introduced to new guidelines designed to help you understand what meaningful engagement means to support your advocacy
• Move from just learning about advocacy to identifying concrete advocacy steps you can take.

Image: Barbados Today

Join the launch of the following Young Caribbean Minds (YCM) Resources:

✅ The YCM Curriculum -- a school and community organisations resource on Mental Health, Child Protection, and Violence Prevention
✅ The YCM Workbook Volume 3 -- a hands-on child/youth resource covering Mental Health, Child Protection, and Violence Prevention
✅ The YCM Network -- a powerful group of children and youth taking action across the Caribbean

WHY ATTEND?

🎁 Download free YCM resources exclusively for registered attendee .

⁠🌐 Connect with a regional network of child protection professionals, educators, and youth advocates⁠

💡 Be the first to access tools and frameworks you can use immediately in your work, classroom, or community

This event is for everyone -- parents, caregivers, children, youth, teachers, guidance counsellors, child protection workers and anyone who supports children and youth. If you care about young people, this is for you.

Image: Jamaica Gleaner website

Jamaica Gleaner: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) represent Jamaica’s most pressing public health crisis, and addressing obesity is central to this challenge. Fiscal policy on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) must be firmly aligned with public health priorities to reduce NCDs and their related burdens.

Recent government budget measures have revised the Special Consumption Tax (SCT) on sweetened beverages, now incorporating it as a central component of Jamaica’s public health strategy. 

Reducing excessive sugar consumption is the central goal. Fiscal measures like SSB taxation must remain core, but only as integrated elements of a broader public health policy, not as isolated solutions.

Click/Tap to play 

Sagicor: Hosted by Dr. Kenneth Connell, President of the HCC and Deputy Dean of Recruitment and Outreach at the UWI Faculty of Medicine, The Wellness Effect is a video podcast series designed to educate our communities about the dangers of NCDs. It will show the impact on not just their physical but their financial wellbeing. The series is a partnership between Sagicor, the Healthy Caribbean Coalition and the UWI Faculty of Medicine.

Image: CNW website

CNW: Ahead of World Hypertension Day, health experts are again warning that hypertension—often called the “silent killer”—remains one of the region’s most persistent and underestimated health crises.

Observed annually on May 17, World Hypertension Day is led globally by the World Hypertension League and supported by the World Health Organization to raise awareness of the condition, which affects an estimated 1.3 billion people worldwide. But in the Caribbean, the concern is particularly urgent.

Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit made the disclosure during a press conference held this week. 

It has been reported that during the past decade and a half, Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases (CNCDs)—including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, chronic lung disease, and high blood pressure—have been the leading cause of death in Dominica.

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Image: OPS

PAHO: In March, a technical mission was carried out in the Dominican Republic to support the implementation of cervical cancer screening services at the first level of care and to strengthen referral pathways for diagnosis and treatment. These pilot initiatives are being developed with financial support from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). 

The projects are currently being implemented in the border areas of the provinces of Dajabón and Elías Piña. The mission included visits to health facilities to assess service organization, the functioning of care networks, and patient flows for cervical cancer prevention and control.

EarthMedic and EarthNurse are not-for-profits with global scope, with special focus on climate-vulnerable regions, anchored in the Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS), and based in Trinidad and Tobago and England, UK.

• VIRTUAL EVENT: The Pulse of Tomorrow: Shifting the Paradigm for NCDs in Global Health Architecture
• BLOG: 1.7 billion people have steatotic liver disease: Global policy is finally catching up
• All NCD-relevant events happening at the World Health Assembly (WHA79) in one place
• African Union's Common Position on NCDs, injuries, and mental health
• Insights from the 2025 NCD Alliance membership survey

The Caribbean NCD Forum

The Caribbean NCD Forum: Supporting national and regional advocacy in the Caribbean in the lead up to the 3rd UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs in 2018, took take place in Kingston, Jamaica from 23rd-25th April 2018. The Forum was sponsored by the World Diabetes Foundation and HCC’s ongoing sponsor Sagicor Life Inc.. The regional meeting brought together a diverse group of over 90 stakeholders, with the aim to mobilise regional civil society organisations (CSOs) and other key stakeholders to ensure that the Caribbean is fully engaged in the 3rd UN High Level Meeting (UNHLM) on NCDs.