Former Belize City Mayor, Zenaida Moya has reached out to clarify the information that was shared in a court report in Monday night’s newscast. It has to do with an incident that occurred at her residence near mile five on the Philip Goldson Highway. Moya says that contrary to the court report, her caretaker, twenty-eight-year-old Corliss McKenzie entered her apartment, and that she did not let him into her room. She also says that he did not beat her up. Instead, she says, he hit her on the side of her head, when she covered her face with her hands to avoid pepper spray. Corliss McKenzie had pepper-sprayed Moya when they got into an argument that evening. McKenzie also grabbed a bread knife, held her and placed it to her neck and threatened to kill her. Moya said she stomped on his feet and McKenzie destroyed her two phones. She alleges that he also took out four hundred dollars from her purse, but handed her back some of the money and her housekeeper found the rest while cleaning the house. Hence, she says she has asked the police to drop the charge of theft against McKenzie. McKenzie is facing a slew of charges and must re-appear in court on May fourteenth.
On Monday, Governor General Froyla Tzalam received letters of credence from five newly appointed ambassadors to Belize at the Belize House in Belmopan. The ambassadors were appointed from Portugal, Finland, Pakistan, Russia and the Holy See. Their appointments signal Belize’s desire to form relationships with these countries. This was supported by the ambassadors, who each expressed their hopes of forging stronger bonds with Belize during their tenure. Ambassador Santiago De Wit Guzman, of the Holy See, said “I have been very lucky today in presenting my credentials to the people, to the governor General, and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and everything has gone very well. They have shown completely attention and this vulnerability, and they were very kind to me and understanding very well the role a Catholic church plays in the country and their will to support and to encourage”.
Teachers from all over Belize are participating in a program sponsored by NASA. The three-day workshop is part of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Program, or GLOBE, which seeks to connect teachers, students, scientists and citizen scientist all around the world to better understand, sustain and benefit the environment. We attended the workshop today to see what kind of activities were taking place there.
Britney Gordon, Reporting
The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, or GLOBE project, is an international program sponsored by NASA, the US Department of State, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Science Foundation to promote citizen science around the four spheres of Earth. The program currently exists in one hundred and twenty-nine countries globally and nineteen in the Latin American region. The goal for Belize is to train teachers and spread the program throughout the country and help teachers to implement this program within their classrooms and their students.
Juan Felipe Restrepo
Juan Felipe Restrepo, Mentor, GLOBE
“GLOBE is a program that is all around the world. This is sponsored by NASA, Department of the States of the United States, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation of the United States. What they promote is citizen science around the four spheres of a pedosphere, a hydrosphere and biosphere in each of those spheres. Scientists have designed have created protocols, very precise and rigorous protocols that are the citizens follow. So, our data is accurate enough to be used by them. That gives a very powerful tool for teachers because it’s called authenticity. They are going to tell the students that they are solving real problems with real tools. So, what we are doing in these three days is teaching them how to use those protocols, make the measurements, and we are trying to replicate in a way what we expect them to do in their classes.”
The program is still in its early stages in Belize, but ultimately seeks to provide educators with the tools needed to foster an environment for hands-on learning in the classroom that encourages students to participate in science throughout their daily lives. It’s accurate, reliable and suitable for investigation projects. Academic Coordinator at the Ministry of Education, Carlos Quiroz explained how the project is developing in Belize.
Carlos Quiroz
Carlos Quiroz, Academic Coordinator at the Ministry of Education
“So what is happening right now is that we’re in our first phase of getting teachers trained in implementing the GLOBE program. It’s not fully spread across all schools just yet. What we’re doing is we’re piloting it with some teachers from schools across Belize and we’re because one of the good things about globe is that you can tailor it to your local needs. And so, they will, working with them, they will give us insight into how it can fit within the Belizean context. So, taking a new curriculum and mapping it with the GLOBE content and the GLOBE’S activities and see which part of GLOBE can be implemented in which section of the curriculum.”
As a part of today’s activities, teachers were tasked with taking measurements of various components of the environment and comparing them to different areas every hour. Participants used the Global server app to track their observations in the NASA database in real time. Teachers also were given a profile on the Globe Program website to keep a record of their data. This training is concentrated on atmosphere and biosphere protocols designed by scientists that assure that the data that collected are accurate. We spoke with a participant from Cayo to hear what she has taken away from the program so far.
Lianne Herrera-Awe
Lianne Herrera-Awe, Education Officer
“So as an education officer, we are responsible to provide support and monitoring to teachers. And so, from that vantage point, I’m able to have teachers here with us. Interact with the environment and have students become active participants rather than passive observers. We’re walking away from chalk and talk in the classroom because that is not the way for our children to learn. They get a chance to interact with these things rather than just reading it from a textbook or just getting theoretical knowledge of what it is they should learn. We want for our students to be active participants and be of their learning. And so, this is not tailored to any one textbook or curriculum, but it is set up in such a way where anyone can take it up and own it and learn from it and there’s no right or wrong way to dig in the sand and gather data.”
The project coordinators said that GLOBE exists not only to educate, but to allow for people to care about their environment and give back to the community using the knowledge they acquire.
Mariana Savino
Mariana Savino, Regional Coordinator for the Latin American & Caribbean, GLOBE
“The goal for Belize is to train teachers and spread the program throughout the country and help teachers to implement this program within their classrooms and their students. And the GLO program is a science education program that connects teachers, students, scientists and citizen science all around the world to better understand, sustain and benefit the environment. So the goal is to know more about the environment and encourage people, students and teachers to protect the environment and be aware of the climate change and all the things that damage the earth.”
If you’ve eaten from Thelma’s Kitchen before, then you know her food is very tasty. The last time we visited with Thelma Arana, it was to do a positive story about the variety of creole food she cooks daily at her Caesar Ridge Road address. But today, the story isn’t that good. In fact, one of Thelma’s neighbours has made a complaint against her business, claiming that the smoke that emanates from there is affecting her family. So, we stopped by to see what the issue was. We discovered that it is a barbeque grill that Thelma uses occasionally to boil the ingredients for her boil-up. But the next-door neighbour says the smoke issue occurs daily and that she wants it to stop. Thelma says the problem between her, and the next-door neighbour precedes the opening of her restaurant and involves other matters. News Five’s Marion Ali reports.
Marion Ali, Reporting
A resident who lives beside a restaurant has gone public to complain about the challenge she has been having ever since the establishment opened up about ten years ago. Everyone in the Yarborough/Caesar Ridge Road area knows Thelma’s Kitchen. While many of you have enjoyed her food, her next-door neighbour, Betty Bradley, says she has not been enjoying the smoke from the restaurant.
Betty Bradley
Betty Bradley, Caesar Ridge Road Resident
“The neighbor has a restaurant, right, and I nuh have no problem with that, because everybody has to live, right? And deh thing deh, but then this is going through so many years I’ve been through. The neighbor light up a fire hearth every morning, soon da morning, and I live here, and that’s the smoke that wake me up. I can’t inhale. I have my family and everything there. My granddaughter gets sick offa the smoke.”
Bradley says that in the past, she had complained to the Belize City Council about the problem and that it had subsided. She now claims that the smoke is back daily. But Arana says that she had followed the Belize City Council’s directive and stopped using her fire hearth altogether and switched to custom-made gas stoves for cooking. She admits that twice a week she uses a barbeque grill for a short while because it is more affordable than butane.
Thelma Arana
Thelma Arana, Owner, Thelma’s Kitchen
“Da wa small barbecue grill I use. It’s not a huge fire weh yoh wudda say wa mek big fire or big smoke. I only light the fire on Thursdays and Fridays. We have to boil a huge [pot of] plantains, and that’s just for one hour. And Fridays, I had to boil the potatoes, the cassava thing, just for one hour, and then I out it. And then you have to boil deh pigtail, you have to boil all this stuff. I have to buy gas like once every time and maybe sometimes twice a week.”
Thelma Arana believes that the complaint stems from an old issue between them. Today when we showed up, the barbeque grill was not in use. Thelma says that to avoid a confrontation with her neighbour, she will consider giving up use of the grill as well. One thing both neighbours agree to is that they both have had differences in the past that had nothing to do with smoke.
Betty Bradley
“This lady has a thing against me, right? And she know the reason, right? All I want…”
Marion Ali
“It has to do with more than just the fire hearth stove?”
Betty Bradley
“Well, I think so.”
Thelma Arana
“My property was a little higher than hers and when it rained and then the water goh eena fi she yard ih cuss mi fi that. I can’t stop rain.”
The Belize City Council sent a representative today to Thelma’s Kitchen, to inform her that she will have to stop using the grill. She has told us that she will. Marion Ali for News Five.
Every two years, FAO holds a Regional Ministerial Conference in Latin America and the Caribbean, bringing together its 33 Members in the region to monitor progress and address the challenges towards fighting hunger, poverty, malnutrition, and inequalities, and to achieving the transformation of agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, FAO’s agrifood systems approach has been effective in supporting countries in accelerating the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
According to FAO’s latest estimates, the prevalence of undernourishment in the region decreased in 2022 to 6.5 percent, from 7.0 percent in 2021, which means that 2.4 million people are no longer suffering from hunger. However, such progress has occurred in South America (from 7.0 percent to 6.1 percent), while the prevalence of hunger has remained almost the same in Mesoamerica (from 5.0 percent to 5.1 percent). In the Caribbean, undernourishment has risen, from 14.7 percent in 2021 to 16.3 percent in 2022.
These statistics only scratch the surface of the current challenges facing agrifood systems in the region, which include the impacts of the climate crisis, economic disparities, and an over-dependence on commodities.
Although the region is a net food exporter and responsible for 13 percent of global food production, reliance on commodity imports and exports exposes its agrifood systems to macroeconomic volatility and geopolitical instability, which in turn negatively impact food prices and incomes and lead to unfavourable food security and nutrition outcomes.
FAO Director General QU Dongyu and Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali/QU Dongyu
The 38th FAO Regional Ministerial Conference will be held in the Caribbean nation of Guyana from 18 to 21 March 2024. This conference is a significant opportunity for member countries to enhance their individual and collective innovative thinking and build capacity to adapt to the changing landscape of agrifood systems across the region, and beyond, and be prepared for possible future scenarios.
With the engagement of governments and all partners, the conference aims to forge a consensus on tailored action plans for food and agriculture and to uphold the fundamental human right to food in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner.
The experience in Latin America and the Caribbean shows that achieving sustainable agrifood systems requires concerted multi-sectoral efforts. Fighting hunger is an act of collective responsibility, and thanks to a thriving regional integration, tangible results have been achieved. FAO continues to work through relevant international and multilateral fora in the region, and beyond, to continue to highlight the food security agenda and accelerate actions to advance the transformation of agrifood systems.
Ownership and leadership by FAO Members, and collective efforts by all development partners and stakeholders, are critical. Shared vision, foresight, responsibilities, and implementation arrangements are needed to achieve our goals. I would like to emphasize the significance of collaborations and partnerships across the Latin America and the Caribbean region.
In recent years, significant strides have been taken to bring together diverse perspectives and reach a regional consensus that will provide the blueprint for the Organization’s work in the region for the next biennium.
FAO is currently implementing around 400 national, sub-regional, and regional projects in Latin America and the Caribbean that have added millions of households to the agrifood value chain.
Moreover, there is evidence that FAO’s global initiatives, such as the Hand-in-Hand, the 1000 Digital Villages, and the One Country One Priority Product, have positively impacted farmers, especially smallholders, women, youth, Indigenous Peoples and marginalized groups and rural populations.
At the Regional Ministerial Conference, FAO will focus on four interconnected regional priorities reflecting the “four betters” set out in the Organization’s Strategic Framework 2022-31 – better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind. These priorities aim to catalyze the transformation of agrifood systems by enhancing efficiency, inclusivity, and sustainability in production; eradicating hunger and advancing food security and nutrition; promoting the sustainable management of natural resources and adaptation to the climate crisis; and addressing inequalities, poverty, and fostering resilience.
Guyana Rice Development Board applying technological innovation to better production/QU Dongyu
The comprehensive Strategic Framework for the next decade provides us with an opportunity to take a wide-ranging look at our agrifood systems, identify areas that need improvement, and take appropriate actions. Members benefit from FAO’s technical expertise, assistance, and support through its headquarters, as well as regional, subregional, and country offices, to ensure effective implementation in support of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. My focus is on strengthening FAO’s country offices to maximize their impact on the ground and support the work of Members at the country level.
Our main goal for the region remains clear: to improve food production and ensure that everyone has access to nutritious food, while protecting natural resources and reducing inequalities, poverty, and hunger. We must produce more with less. To this end, we need to leverage the potential of cooperation, trade, investment and the utilization of innovation and technology within the region and with other regions.
At FAO, we have realigned and refocused our efforts towards supporting Members in accelerating the transformation needed. We have adopted agile operating strategies, offered tailored and timely data and analytical support, enhanced our engagement with governments, the private sector, civil society, academia, and international financial institutions, and have established transformative partnerships with all key players. The reformed and restructured FAO is now better equipped, fit-for-purpose and already working towards this transformation for the benefit of people, planet, and prosperity.
By QU Dongyu, Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
