Health & Wellness Week 2023 Concludes

Health and Wellness Week concluded today in Belmopan with a socathon where participants danced, ran and walked the Ring Road in the nation’s capital. But the activities began with Mental Health Monday and each day was set aside to focus on a particular area. The theme for this year was “Your Health is My Health” and is being done in collaboration with PAHO, UNICEF, INCAP, as well as public and private stakeholders. Today, News Five spoke with the Ministry of Health and Wellness Technical Advisor Kathleen Azueta-Cho about the regional event.

Kathleen Azueta-Cho

Kathleen Azueta-Cho, Technical Advisor, Ministry of Health & Wellness

“It’s being celebrated in both the Caribbean and Central America and it has been ongoing for a couple of years now. Since 2009, it started as Caribbean Wellness Day and now because of the big importance that we are placing on healthy living, we are now devoting an entire week to bring awareness on the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle. It is really to help in the fight against non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cancers, chronic kidney disease. So it is really to help bring, mobilize our partner – public/private entities – to come onboard and join in the fight against NCDs. This year, our week of calendar activities highlight an important component of wellness. So on Monday we had Mental Health Monday, Tuesday was Nutrition Tuesday; Oral Health Wednesday; we had Prevention and Detection Thursday and today, our last day is Let’s Get Physical – Let’s Get Moving, There are No Buts. It’s really well-received, people come out and because we it’s in the month of September and we are still in that celebratory mood of our independence, we decided to bring that soca music and get people moving – dancing, walking. It is not something to compete. We are just here to make physical activity fun. Bring your family, your friends and it is a message too that we can start just talking small steps to our being healthier – make healthier choices, drink water, get up from your office desk and move. Park a distance from your office and walk so you can get those steps in.”