Promoting and protecting the health of Caribbean children and youth goes back over six decades. CARICOM member governments, members of the Caribbean community, stimulated and supported in many instances by the international community, have implemented a multiplicity of national and sub-regional projects over the decades to strengthen the role of schools in the discharge of this responsibility.
Preparation of teachers has been a central facet of all efforts from the inception. This emphasis has been in recognition of their strategic position to help children and young people grow, learn, and mature into citizens capable of leading healthy, personally satisfying, socially and economically productive lives. In more recent times, the case for teacher preparation now includes benefits to teachers themselves, their schools, and the wider community at large.
Promoting the health of children through schools has been one of the important goals of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) over the decades. Through its Office of Caribbean Program Coordination (CPC), it has been privileged to play a pioneering role in this general regard and in teacher preparation in particular, in collaboration with the University of the West Indies (UWI), the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). Continuing in this collaborative vein, PAHO agreed to be one of the partners of the CARICOM/UN MultiAgency Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) Project which was endorsed by the Standing Conferences of Ministers of Health and Ministers of Education in 1996.
