SAGICOR Walk/Run to Benefit Healthy Lifestyles
It is not intended to be competitive but the five-kilometer walk and run organized by SAGICOR insurance in Belize City on Saturday evening is intended to be both fun and for a good cause – two causes, in fact. Up to ten thousand dollars in funding will be raised on behalf of the Kidney and Diabetes Associations to support their education and assistance efforts for sufferers of both diseases, and promoting healthy living among the populace. We spoke to the company’s communications manager and an officer of the Diabetes Association.
Marlene Chin
Marlene Chin, Corporate Communications Manager, SAGICOR
“The SAGICOR Phoenix Walk Run 2017 since its inauguration, is really to promote healthy lifestyle, having fun while promoting the messages of the various associations with which we partner. This year the SAGICOR Phoenix Walk Run funds will go toward the Diabetes Association as well as the Kidney Association. We conceptualized the walk to encourage family, friends, to come out and have fun all while exhibiting healthy lifestyle. Having a walk at six p.m. in the evening is going to be so much fun. It’s going to be a cool evening walk – we have music trucks, we have entertainment along the way; we will have three water stations along the way; we will be walking under the protection of our police officers; we will have BERT, our emergency response team there with us. So it’s pretty safe, pretty enjoyable.”
Ronald Stuart
Ronald Stuart, Assistant Treasurer, Belize Diabetes Association
“A lot of the work we do is in the area of education. We have a lot of persons who we try to reach – the wider public, not only our members who are living with the condition. But to raise the awareness to the extent that it causes or enables persons to look into their lifestyle choices and change them for the better. So that if you prevent it causes us to benefit – when I say us, the wider community, because in those instances where you have persons whose lifestyle may not be the best, they might be walking that road that will lead to diabetes, kidney failure and all the other non-communicable diseases. So if we are able to get persons to understand that a healthy lifestyle is based on choices every day, several times a day, and being able to be proactive, we then are able to reap the benefits down the road.”
The route begins and ends at SAGICOR’s Coney Drive office and goes through Princess Margaret Drive, Freetown Road, Mapp Street, North Front Street, Queen Street, Daly Street, Craig Street, Marine Parade, Newtown Barracks and back up Princess Margaret Drive. Registration fee is twenty-five dollars and forms are available at the SAGICOR office or register before the event from four-thirty to five-thirty.
