We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas today.

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus today, it reminds us to reflect on and be grateful for life.

This year was a sad one for us, Abi Begho (our founder) lost her mother to cancer (Multiple Myeloma) and that is why this Christmas we’re reflecting on the gift of life – why it’s given and why it’s taken away.

Life is given to us by God as a precious gift.  A gift that has immense possibilities and potential.  Through our reflection, we have come to realise that whether we like it or not, the gift of life comes with accountability and responsibility. We are accountable to God as to how we use the gift he entrusted us with and we are responsible for our choices, actions and our impact. With this in mind, we have a new mindset, life has fresh meaning for us, it goes beyond what we want to do with our lives, but identifying what  God’s purpose for our life is. We must fulfil this purpose, make a difference and make our community a better place, in our own way. So one step at a time, one day at a time, one tiny action at our time, in 2020 we aim to fulfil God’s purpose for Lake Health and Wellbeing.

As we fulfil our purpose, we have to think of the lives of others. We thank God for our loved ones, colleagues, collaborators, followers, supports and funders and the impact they have had on our lives. As we enter into 2020 our aim is to show everyone appreciation and to not take others for granted. We endeavour to respect people’s time, opinions, contribution, encouragement, words, talent, messages, phone calls….everything.  We have to take a good look at the effect we have on others and ensure that we have a positive impact on every single person we come in contact with and ensure that every contact we have with people is positive, productive and kind.

Life is taken away when our journey has come to an end. When we get to that point and we look back on our lives, will we be happy with how we ran the race? This question will be at the forefront of our minds every day.

Death has been a powerful lesson for us. We hope this blog post hasn’t been too preachy but this is just what we have been reflecting on today as we remember the birth of Christ and the importance of a life well-lived.

We wish you a great day today, filled with love, shared with family and with a promise of better days ahead.

xx

It’s been pretty busy over the past few months so you may have noticed we’ve been very quiet on the social media, newsletter and blog front. We had to take a break from these three activities and focus on some new projects.

We’re a tiny team and during busy periods we have to pull back from the lighter work to ensure that we can get things done.

So, what have we been up to?

Over the past few months our  Public Health support service has taken off and we have had the pleasure of working with clients, all NGOs, on research and grant writing contracts.

Our clients are working on a range of wellbeing projects across four African countries including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and South Africa.  What a fantastic learning experience this has been. The wonders of technology have meant that we can cross borders and cultures right from the comfort of our office and have a significant impact on organisations that require support to achieve their aims and objects.  It has been fulfilling assisting small organisations in developing their project ideas and acquiring the funds they require to conduct much-needed work in the areas of FGM, poverty alleviation, education, healthcare and more.  And, because we’re a non-profit we can offer these services at an affordable price to organisations that wouldn’t normally be able to access these services, and the money we have made from these contracts is funding our own work – our fibroids programme, our childhood obesity prevention projects and covering our operational costs.  This has been a win-win.

As well as the growth of this new service, over the past few months, we’ve received two grants and are working on a physical activity bid for the Ministry of Education. It’s fun times ahead.

The first grant we received was from the Taiwanese International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF) for a new fun pilot project we’re in the process of planning called My Healthy Heroes. We’re developing engaging resources which can be used in schools and at home to educate children about healthy eating and to encourage children to make healthy choices. We’re delighted to be piloting our approach with the Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Basseterre, St Kitts, starting in 2020. At the moment we’re working hard to develop a collection of resources, ensure they fit into the school curriculum and gain useful insights from teachers, children and the Ministry of Education to help inform the direction of this pilot project.

The second grant we received was from Soca Girls Rock! to support our new research study exploring the needs of women living with fibroids. This work aims to provide an in-depth exploration of women’s experiences and help us identify any psychosocial, personal, institutional and physical challenges that women with fibroids may experience that may impact their health and wellbeing. By exploring these issues, we can develop an understanding of how fibroids may affect a woman’s quality of life and this will enable us to begin to focus on strategies to support women who have been affected by fibroids. We’ve recently applied for ethics approval and once granted, our project will begin – yay!

Finally, we’re excited to have received approval from the Ministry of Education for a bid to conduct some work to increase the amount and quality of physical activity that children participate in using an innovative approach. This approach fuses 3-D animation with physical activity. It’s still a very early stage in the bid process so we won’t say much more, but once things progress, we’ll provide an update.

So, yes, work-wise it has been a great few months and we are very grateful for all the opportunities that have come our way. A big thank you the ICDF, Soca Girls Rock! and The Ministry of Education for their support and a big thank you to our new clients, it has been wonderful working with you.

From 29^th April to 3^rd May 2019, the counselling department at Verschilds High School hosted their Health and Wellness Week and we were delighted to have been invited to take part in two of their planned events.

On 29^th April, we spoke, bright and early, at the school’s assembly on the topic of stress management. During our 15 minute presentation, we talked about what stress is, what types of situations cause stress, the impact of stress and how we can manage stress.

We encouraged students to think about their own personal situations, especially during this exam period, to see how they can address any stressors that may be affecting their wellbeing and provided tips on managing these, which included – identifying stressors, elimination/delay of stressors, preparation, stress relief techniques, building resilience and getting support.

We had a great session with the student body and therefore were very happy to return on the 3^rd May for their health and wellness fair.

During their health and wellness fair, we set up a stall and promoted living a healthy lifestyle. We spoke to students and staff about the importance of children and teenagers getting enough exercise and physical activity (WHO recommends 60 minutes per day), drinking more water, eating 5-7 portions of fruit and vegetables per day and cutting down on sugary drinks.

We had information showing how much sugar is in many popular soft drinks and students and teachers were shocked to learn that one can of coke contains 8 teaspoons of sugar.

To encourage children to swap their unhealthy snacks for healthier snacks, we had some lovely mangoes for staff and students to sample and this included some dried mangoes. Dried mango is a great alternative to candy and chocolate and it tastes great –  the students (well…most of them) loved it.

We also held a competition where we asked students how many minutes of physical activity children and teenagers should take part in every day and three lucky students won a comic book – congratulations.

Finally, it was great to connect with the other stallholders, some of whom were familiar faces, such as the team behind Mother Becky Bush Tea and Sugar Town Organics. It was nice meeting the Gideon  Force Organic Agriculture  Cooperative, Close to Nature and the Drugs and Substance Misuse Team and learning about the great work they are all doing.

We had a great time at Verchilds High School and would like to thank the staff for their kind invitation and both staff and students for their warm welcome, visiting our stall and asking some great questions.

March was International Women’s Month, Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, the perfect opportunity to put the spotlight on the pressing issues that women face every day.

International Women’s Day was on the 8^th March and this year’s theme set the tone for the month.

This year’s theme was #BalanceForBetter and aimed to stress the importance of creating a gender-balanced world.

This campaign didn’t just begin and end in March but continues all year long. The team behind the  #BalanceForBetter theme is hoping that over the year society can work towards gender-balance in all sectors so that we can see more gender-balanced boardrooms, governments, media coverage, wealth, businesses and more.

Since March, organisations throughout the world have launched their own #BalanceForBetter campaigns to either explore what needs to be done to create a more gender-balanced world or to showcase women in various fields who are creating gender-balance through their work. One such organisation was Noire Wellness and we were delighted to have been featured in their campaign (thank you!).

Noire Wellness’ campaign focused on balance in the wellness sector. Their campaign featured women in this sector, showcased their work and explored what balance means to them.

We took the opportunity that this campaign presented to call for gender-balance in public health approaches.

Having spent the last few years slowly developing a fibroids health and wellbeing programme, we have seen first-hand the effect of not creating gender-balance in public health.

By not taking gender into account many health conditions, particularly gynaecological conditions,  are overlooked with their impact not being fully appreciated. This means that women with conditions like fibroids lack the information and support that they require to make informed decisions about their treatment, to improve their own health and wellbeing and navigate the many challenges that living with fibroids presents. Furthermore, there is a lack of research and a lack of understanding of the causes of fibroids.

We aren’t the only ones calling for a gender-balanced approach.

We recently attended a webinar on women and non-communicable diseases (NCDs)  and it was stressed that there needs to be a more gender-balanced approach to public health to avoid placing women at a disadvantage.  One of the speakers explained that when it comes to medical research the male body is well-known, most research is conducted on white men and data is simply (and with a false expectation) extrapolated to women.  This means there is no appreciation of the biological differences that exist between males and females and how this impacts health. The speaker stated that, for example, we now know that:

• Women’s lungs are smaller than men’s which has an impact on women’s risks of developing lung diseases and the type of lung diseases that women develop
• Women’s hearts are smaller
• Women are more likely to develop a different form of bowel cancer
• Women process alcohol differently

These gender differences, and others, have gone unnoticed by the medical profession and this has led to misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment. This would not have been the case if there was a gender-balanced approach in the health sector.

More work is needed to address the gender imbalance that has been created in public health and medical research. By creating gender-balance in these areas we can begin to address the gender inequalities that exist and ensure that we can improve the health of all women.

At the end of every year, we use the opportunity of one year coming to an end and being on the cusp of a new year to look back and reflect on our achievements. The reason why we do this is because, throughout the year, we can be quite critical about our progress and fail to recognise what has gone well – this can be very demotivating. So, every year we look at our achievements to bring in some balance, learn some important lessons and go into the new year with some positive energy.

This year has been an interesting one, as it was our first full year in St Kitts. For those of you who may not know, we were based in the UK and moved to St Kitts at the end of 2017. Our aim for 2018 was to explore the public health landscape in the Caribbean and to understand how we can make a useful contribution to improving the health and wellbeing of the citizens of St Kitts and Nevis, and the wider Caribbean community too.

It was a hard year, but it turned into one of the best learning experiences ever! We explored everything (from podcasting to webinars). It didn’t all work out, but our efforts helped us gain some clarity which has led to us developing a focused strategy for the next two years.

And so, with your support and encouragement we’re happy to say we had a good year and are proud to present you with our 2018 achievements:

1. We continued our work on fibroids and launched our fibroids self-care webinar series, published two fact sheets, one on fibroids and exercise and the other on the emotional impact of fibroids, we hosted 7 fibroids twitter chats with some amazing guests, joined forces with OH Services to begin to facilitate an online forum for women with fibroids and teamed up with Noire Wellness for a fibroids social media campaign for International Women’s Day.

 

2. We became a member of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition and supported their childhood obesity prevention call-to-action (petition) by recruiting volunteers to develop a four-part podcast series on childhood obesity and sought support from the public for the petition, gaining over 400 signatures from residents of St Kitts and Nevis.

 

3. We were invited to the Healthy Caribbean Coalition’s childhood obesity ‘Beyond the Call-to-Action’ event in Barbados where we took part in a panel discussion on the importance of alliances and collaborations in addressing critical public health issues.

4. We published a position paper on sugar sweetened beverage (SSB) taxation in St Kitts and Nevis

 

5. We formed a good working relationship with the Ministry of Health in St Kitts and assisted with their plans for World Cancer Day, Caribbean Wellness Day and Caribbean Wellness Week. Additionally, the Ministry of Health invited us to take part in their SSB consultation, the PAHO Health Promotion Consultation and their Chronic Disease Self-Management Programme.

 

6. We signed a new consultancy client, the FIT Wellness Centre, and assisted them in the development of their NCD Prevention Action Plan, preparing for their National Weight Loss Campaign and developing their new website.

7. We explored podcasting and interviewed some fantastic guests, but soon realised that we don’t have the time to host a weekly, nor bi-monthly podcast but will continue releasing episodes sporadically.

 

8. We obtained some media coverage and were featured on the NNC news, SKN Vibes, Times Caribbean and 31 Days of Business Ideas, and were interviewed on the Secret Birds podcast

 

9. We added a new area to our portfolio – Public Health Tech – to explore how we can bring technology and public health together by exploring tech based products and services to educate the public about their risk of developing disease,  to raise awareness of health issues and to provide engaging ways of communicating health messages.

 

10. We launched a Public Health Tech mini-project, the development of a Diabetes Risk Assessment Tool, and this tool went live in December 2018.

 

11. We launched our online shop, The Lake Shop For Good, which aims to promote a healthy lifestyle by selling products that remind us all to live healthily. Our shop also helps us to continue to do good in our community with all money raised going towards our public health projects.

We had a really productive year with some highs and lows, which helped us make significant progress through the many lessons we have learnt from them.

We’re very  much excited and looking forward to 2019, and we wish you all a happy New Year and a healthy, happy, peaceful and successful year ahead.

With Christmas being just around the corner, we would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

As we get ourselves prepared for this beautiful season over here in the Caribbean we’re taking  some time this week to remember the real meaning of Christmas. It can be easy to get caught up in the commercial side which, more often that not, leads to an unnecessarily stressful period instead of one filled with love, hope and charity.

A recent church service we attended really resonated with us, we were reminded that during this season we should take the focus off ourselves and give back – visit the elderly, donate gifts to those in need and spend some time with patients in hospital.

If we are to focus on ourselves, we were advised to make this a time of self reflection – how can we become a better person? Are there relationships in our life that need restoring? So over the next few days we’ll be exploring these questions and ensuring we have a healthy balanced holiday season.

Staying Healthy Over the Holiday Season

Every year we give the same advice on how to stay healthy over the Christmas and New Year period, and this year our advice remains the same – watch your portion sizes, include lots of vegetables with your Christmas dinner (try Brussel sprouts, parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes and  baked/grilled plantain), and for dessert try some fruit salad or healthy alternatives to traditional desserts (maybe a cashew cheesecake instead of a traditional cheesecake).

Additionally select white meat and fish instead of red meat and keep active (try walking or cycling throughout the two week holiday period) and importantly don’t neglect your mental health, have a bit of me-time and relax.

We hope you have a lovely Christmas that is stress-free, peaceful, filled with love and enables you to spend some  quality time with your loved ones.

 

On 20^th November 2018, we were on the beautiful island of Barbados for the Healthy Caribbean Coalition’s ‘Beyond the Call to Action Event: Towards School Policies in Support of Childhood Obesity Prevention.’

This event marked the end of the HCC’s childhood obesity prevention campaign. One of the key parts of this campaign was the HCC’s childhood obesity prevention petition (Call to Action) which called on Heads of Government to enact any of the following policies and legislation which have been demonstrated as effective measures to combat childhood  obesity:

• Imposition of a tax of not less than 20% on Sugar Sweetened Beverages (SSBs) and use tax revenue for NCD prevention and control.
• Banning the sale, promotion and marketing of SSBs, and unhealthy foods and beverages in and around schools.
• Mandatory physical activity in all primary and secondary schools
• Adoption and application of regional standards for nutritional and front of package labelling of foods and beverages.
• Banning the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children (includes non-school environments)
• Enacting legislation related to The International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.

This event brought together a wide cross section of national and regional stakeholders to celebrate the achievements of the campaign and to showcase all the great work being conducted across the Caribbean to tackle childhood obesity. We heard from speakers from the Bahamas, Bermuda, Jamaica and Trinidad. It was particularly interesting listening to Dr Simone Spence’s presentation explaining Jamaica Moves’ new initiative targeting schools.

Youth Involvement

It was also very nice to see young people actively participating in this event. Young people took part in a parallel youth session led by Krystal Boyea, the HCC’s Youth Advocate. In this session young people discussed the solutions and barriers to creating a healthy school environment and also explored the types of products sold in schools and how the school environment influences behaviour and health.

We Took Part in a Panel Discussion

We had the pleasure of taking part in a panel discussion with other CSOs including the Antigua and Barbuda Diabetes Association,  the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados,  the Grenada NCD Commission, the St Lucia Diabetes and Hypertension Association and the Heart Foundation of Jamaica about the importance of coalitions and collaborations in addressing critical issues such as childhood obesity. We had an interesting discussion, facilitated by Sir Trevor Hassell.

We really enjoyed this event and would like to thank the HCC for inviting us to take part in the panel discussion. We look forward to hearing more about the work being conducted across the Caribbean to tackle childhood obesity and making our own small contribution to this effort.

 

On  Tuesday 8^th October 2018,  the Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organization in collaboration with the Ministry of Health organised a workshop at the National ICT Centre in St Kitts. The workshop was part of PAHO’s regional consultation to inform their Strategy and Action Plan on Health Promotion in the Context of the Sustainable Development Goals (2019 – 2030).

We were invited to attend this event along with representatives from a diversity of organisations across St Kitts. Similar events have been held across the Caribbean and the Americas, and the data collected will allow PAHO to recover information, lessons learnt and gain perspectives that will contribute to the construction of their new strategy.  The aim is to renew health promotion through a social, political and technical movement, addressing the determinants of health as a path towards sustainable development and towards reducing health inequities.

The objectives of the national consultation are:

• To involve the countries in the construction of the Strategy and Plan of Action on Health Promotion for the revitalization of the movement in the Region.
• To identify key elements that the Strategy and Plan of Action must include to support the countries on the positioning of Health Promotion.
• To collect the Health Promotion experiences in the countries that contribute to the Strategy and Plan of Action.
• To identify the role of actors involved for the implementation of the Strategy and Plan of Action.
• To support the countries in the renewal of the Health Promotion movement with the identification of a lead group at the national level.

Those attending the workshops participated in discussions on four key areas:
1. Settings and local action
2. Intersectoral work, social determinants of health, Health in all policies, and public policies
3. Community participation and social participation for Health
4. Health systems and services

The above discussion points were based on important health promotion concepts as outlined by the Ottawa Charter of 1986 for Health Promotion.

Going forward the Ministry of Health in St Kitts will summarise the information from this event and PAHO will add this to the data collected from all countries taking part in the consultation. They will then analyse the data, identity common themes and important approaches and include these in the draft strategy which will be circulated for comment before a final strategy is published in September 2019.

We would like to thank the Ministry of Health in St Kitts for inviting us to take part in this consultation and look forward to seeing the draft and final strategy when they are made available in 2019.

We do hope that the information collected as part of this consultation will provide PAHO with the information required to develop an effective strategy that supports the needs of each country in the Americas.

You’ve probably received lots and lots of emails recently from companies big and small about GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which is the new EU data protection regulation that is coming into effect on 25^th May.

We’re no longer based in the EU but as people on our mailing list are, we’d like to let you know that if you’re on our mailing list, we would have asked you if you would like to be on our mailing list. This will have been done, most likely, at an event through our mailing list sign-up sheet or you would have signed up via our website.  We wouldn’t have added you randomly or if you simply emailed us to ask a question or requested information. We would have, and will, always ask(ed) you before we add(ed) you to our mailing list.

If you would no longer like to  be on our mailing list, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe button at the bottom of any edition of our newsletter.

Just a reminder that we:

• Only store your email address and name to send you our monthly newsletter as well as information about our events, giveaways and special announcements
• Won’t share your email address with anybody else, nor will we sell your email address to anyone

We hope you’ll continue to take this journey with us as we aim to improve the health and wellbeing of our community. We have some really interesting projects coming up, plus we’ve just opened up our Shop For Good where you can pick up some cute little items such as badges, key rings, t-shirts and tote bags with encouraging health messages. These items are perfect for health awareness events, giveaways and just to use, or wear, whilst you’re out and about so can you promote a healthy lifestyle.

We look forward to keeping in touch with you and thank you for being part of our mailing list family.

Hello all, this is just a quick post to let you know that our name change is formally and legally complete. We have now changed our name from The Lake Foundation to Lake Health and Wellbeing.

As you know, we moved to the Caribbean from the UK and the move provided an opportunity for us to make some improvements to our organisation which involved the name change and an analysis of our work.

We believe the name change better reflects what we do, and we’ve analysed our work and have categorised what we do as follows: research, public health interventions, consultancy and events. This is similar to our previous categories and we’ve now explained each category and included examples of the type of work we do to make it easier for our supporters to understand what we offer.

We still have the same aim of improving the health and wellbeing of the black community and we’re still pretty much the same organisation except we’re now registered as a business rather than a charitable incorporated organisation. This is because the charitable incorporated organisation structure doesn’t exist in the Caribbean, but we’ll still behave in the same way, so we’ll be an ethical business with a social mission.

We have now changed all our social media handles, you don’t have to do anything as we have retained all our followers, but please remember if you want to send us a message via social media or mention us in posts, to use the new handles, which are:

• Facebook @lakehealthwellbeing
• Twitter @lakehealthwell

Our email addresses will remain the same for now, we’ll alert you when we make any changes.

Thank you so much for all your support and we look forward to continuing this exciting journey of change. Have a great week and if you have any questions, please do leave us a comment below.