Celebration Time at IDB Caribbean

December 7th, 2019

Jamaicans know how to put on a great show – and how to do it right. When I arrived at the headquarters of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (actually in my neighbourhood), I imagined that the 50th anniversary of the bank’s presence in Jamaica would be – well, a bit stiff. How wrong I was. […]

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Cockpit Country: Is It Really All About the Boundaries?

November 29th, 2019

Ceiling fans whirred and night sounds crept through the windows of the Webb Memorial Baptist Church in Stewart Town, Trelawny earlier this evening. A Town Hall Meeting was in progress, streamed live on Facebook on the websites of the sponsors, the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ), the Public Access Channel (PAC) and the Jamaica Gleaner. […]

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Fifteen Strong, and a Woman’s Supportive Voice

November 25th, 2019

I shared in a happy event last week, at the headquarters of Digicel, downtown. Their lobby unfortunately has a huge echo effect, so the voices of employees chatting as they waited for the elevator did a ricochet around my head. It is however a bright and lofty space. Regardless of the voices, we joined the […]

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Didn’t We Just Forget World Toilet Day?

November 20th, 2019

World Toilet Day is a rather awkward title for a very important day. One imagines the whole world sitting on a toilet. Of course, that is the point. The whole world is not sitting on a toilet. In fact, 4.5 billion people do not have access to proper (by proper, I mean safe) sanitation and 2.3 billion […]

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Feeding Ourselves: Healthy Diets for a Zero Hunger World

October 19th, 2019

Are Jamaicans overfed and under-nourished? In Jamaica, World Food Day (October 16) was a rather low key affair. Agriculture Minister Audley Shaw attended an event in his own constituency of Christiana, Manchester, co-sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Jamaica, and there were photo-ops. According to the FAO, poor nutrition causes nearly half […]

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Why Don’t We Just Get on Our Bikes?

September 28th, 2019

One of the (many) interesting conversations I have had on Twitter recently has been with Cycle Jamaica, an entity that actively advocates for more Jamaicans to get on their bikes. I am not talking about those energetic and highly fit people (mostly men) you see out on the Palisadoes and other highways early on Saturday […]

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