The wholesale importation of golf carts in San Pedro over the past couple years has entered new and creative means recently. Golf cart rentals are now resort to disassembling the vehicles into parts and then transporting them onto the island. Today, Belize Rural South Area Representative, Andre Perez told News Five that because of the traffic congestion, permits are not being granted for any more golf carts to be imported in San Pedro. It is a problem that Perez says his office will be collaborating closely with the town council to enforce traffic rules and regulations, and where necessary, to get the Ministry of Transport involved.
Andre Perez
Andre Perez, Area Representative, Belize Rural South
“I have reached out to the Minister of Transport and the CEO that we may need some kind of additional support, maybe at the port that they go there and inspect these things because they need to have permits. They need to have a permit. While you may say you have a dealership license, that does not give you. Open packet for you to bring in a hundred golf carts because you have a dealership license, right? So we have to have some kind of, enforcement there going. And we have reached out and they took for, support there as well. We have to cap it and say no more, because at this point in time, you can go there and rent a golf cart and you’ll pay a rock bottom price for it because the supply is plentiful. Now I’m not saying that we want to increase prices for our tourists, but finding the balance is that enough is enough, and the tourists will understand. When I have the traffic problem and the congestion, we realize that we’ve reached our point. That we have to say, no more. Secondly, enforcing the quality of the golf cart that’s being rented. Beca we have to cap it and say no more, because at this point in time, you can go there and rent a golf cart and you’ll pay a rock bottom price for it. Because the supply is plentiful. Now I’m not saying that we want to increase prices for our tourists, but finding the balance is that enough is enough, and the tourists will understand.When I have the traffic problem and the congestion, we realize that we’ve reached our point. That we have to say, no more. Secondly, enforcing the quality of the golf cart that’s being rented. Because often times you see, some of those tourists are stuck, middle of the street, right there, they broke down.use often times you see, some of those tourists are stuck, middle of the street, right there, they broke down.”
An environmental study is currently being conducted on the northern end of Ambergris Caye to determine the placement of sewer ponds to facilitate the growing population on that side of the island. Today, Belize Rural South Area Representative, Andre Perez says that while the population was growing over the past decade, nothing was being done to expand the sewer system, until now.
Andre Perez, Area Representative, Belize Rural South
“We came in to look at the studies and see what can be done on the northern part of Ambergris Caye. And that again, I want to highlight is the water, the sewer system was installed many years ago, and that is where it’s at, no expansion, no growth on it, no plans ahead. And that is another utility that we’re dealing with, apart from electricity and the sewer and water as well, is that there was no plans for the last 15 years, no kind of plans, no expansion, nothing for infrastructure. So now that this infrastructure is virtually the same as it was 20 years ago. Nothing has been done. So that’s another issue we’re dealing with. I think, in fact, I know, only the town core is hooked up to the sewer system. Environmentally speaking, right now, it’s a concern as well. So we need to work on that as well. That’s another issue that we’re working and looking at it. As you say, it’s in the pipeline, but we are seeing that this should have been done many years ago. But it can’t happen overnight. It costs millions of dollars, the funding as well as money, and that is where our government is working, is seeking those funds that are available.”
The Sargassum onslaught over the years has left the communities it has impacted with less beach and more expenses, requiring the transportation of the smelly seagrass to dumping sites in remote areas of the town. But there is a collaboration between San Pedro Town Council and the Belize Rural South constituency office to replenish over a mile of eroded beachline, caused mainly by sargassum.
Andre Perez
Andre Perez, Area Representative, Belize Rural South
“Indeed, the mayor and I, we had discussed about beach reclamation. We have been working to get on that one about extending the beach from Boca del Rio all the way and just reaching before Ramon’s. That’s just over a mile, but the reclamation – I don’t want to call it beach reclamation. I think the word that the person said is beach rehabilitation – I want to say because beach reclamation sounds rough, but it’s the same thing. The point is this: working together with the dredging company, making sure we get the clearance of the DOE – everything, Fisheries Department, Mining, everything. We want to extend it forty feet. It’s going to be starting soon. I was reaching out recently to the mayor on that one as well and he just expressed to me that they’re willing, ready to sign. I think the down payment needs to be made. We don’t know the figure as yet, but we need to work together. We are working with the company because dredging the sand to reclaim means that we have to work with them. It’s going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that. So we have to collaborate with him also to provide sand that he can sell to other places that can do the refilling. And that is how he gets his money from the natural resources that we can offer. But we do it in an environmentally sound way that can be a win. I can tell you this: the support of the community says beach reclamation is a must. Climate change is real. Beach erosion is real.”
Today, representatives from the University of Belize and the California Baptist University gathered to participate in an international social work research conference. This year’s presentations focused on the topic of mental health in Belize. The two-day event serves as a means for key stakeholders to gather and discuss how to protect and assist people struggling with mental health in Belize. News Five’s Britney Gordon attended the conference today for more details. Here’s the story.
Britney Gordon, Reporting
The University of Belize has hosted the annual Social Work Conference for nearly a decade, but this year marked the first time the conference became an international event. Representatives from the California Baptist University travelled to Belize to share their research and findings on mental health issues in America in hopes of highlighting new avenues for Belizeans to take in addressing various mental struggles. Dean of the University of Belize, Dr. Lisa Johnson explained the theme of the conference to us.
Lisa Johnson
Dr. Lisa Johnson, Dean, University of Belize
“The theme for this year from the International Federation of Social Workers is Buen Vivir we all want to have good living. In order to have good living, we see mental health as a part of the package of good living. We believe that this is a sector that involves multiple disciplines different professionals and so we want to create a platform for social workers and other professionals who are involved in mental health and wellness to come together, to exchange ideas, to identify our gaps, and start talking about realistic solutions to our problems.”
The conference covered various topics such as practice for police officers in mental health, mental health needs of children in foster care, and trauma and resiliency in gang-involved girls in Belize. Dr. Dretona Maddox, an assistant Professor at CBU, presented on black teenage mothers. Maddox said that collaborations like this play a vital role in implementing solutions on an international level.
Dretona Maddox
Dr. Dretona Maddox, Assistant Professor, C.B.U.
“The collaboration is amazing because it is bringing not only research that we are doing in the United States, but also bringing it internationally to the country of Belize. And so we are excited about that collaboration because it just expands the work that we do. What we know in social work is that these issues that we face are not just localized in one particular area, you’ll find in research that what affects one, even though it may be culturally different in how we intervene with them and how we, create our best practices overall. Poverty in one area is poverty in another. And so what we’re experiencing in the United States is also what we’re experiencing abroad. And so it’s important to bring that together so that we are doing best practices across the board and not just in a localized area.”
Another topic discussed was the effect of poverty on mental health. This was a concern that Dr. Kendra Flores-Carter stressed in her panel due to Belize’s high poverty rate. She said that, as poverty exacerbates mental health issues, it is important we recognize signs of those struggling and create accessible resources for them to cope.
Kendra Flores-Carter
Dr. Kendra Flores-Carter, Associate Professor, C.B.U.
“Belize has a high poverty rate. When I was doing my research I think it’s over 50 percent poverty if I’m not from the research that I looked at. And so what that tells me is that there is a significant need for mental health resources and services simply because poverty is directly correlated with our mental health. And when we are not able to pay our bills and meet our basic needs, shelter, clothing, food, we are really in a space where sometimes we’re suffering and sometimes, we really get disturbed mentally. You can’t sleep if you’re worried about paying your bills. And if you’re going to work, eventually, because of all the overwhelming stressors that comes with, Maybe not being able to pay your rent, not being able to feed your family, that stressor then becomes a significant crisis within your life, and really and truly what happens is you break down, and you’re worse off, actually. And so it’s very important to be able to create resources and really recognize when people are in crisis.”
Attending the event was a cross-section of stakeholders, including representatives from law enforcement, the healthcare sector, and academia. Johnson said that the inclusion of a broad range of people is important for the effectiveness of the event.
Dr. Lisa Johnson
“Present we have representatives not only from the University of Belize’s faculty, but Ministry of Education and also Ministry of Home Affairs. The Minister of Home Affairs, in fact, is here himself to participate in one of the panels. You will see police officers social workers out in different fields of practice. And really this is for every professional. It is not something that is just for social work professionals. This is for every professional because every profession deals with mental health issues. Both within the practitioners of that profession and with the people that you work with and with the public that you face. So this is a broad based effort. to look at mental health and wellness on a society, societal level, understanding that in the individual’s mental health then contributes to the lack of or the presence of mental wellness for the society.”
Today at the International Social Work Conference hosted by the University of Belize, the C.E.O. of the Belize Central Prison shared that up to eighty-one prisoners currently require additional assistance regarding their mental health. Murillo explained the issues the prisoners suffer from range low to high levels of severity and that most of these prisoners are in a manageable state. He said that although there is an in-house psychiatrist, the prison would benefit from the appointment of another.
Virgilio Murillo
Virgilio Murillo, C.E.O., Belize Central Prison
“The eighty-one that I referred to in the discussion a while ago are what we consider psychiatric patients or people with psychiatric problems. Of that, not all of them are chronic or serious, so to speak. You might have twenty-five of them, I think, if my memory serves me well that are considered chronic or acute, and then there’s about twenty-right of them that are medium. The remainder would be considered low and they are now back in the general population. So they have reached a point where they are manageable and they are not presenting any problem for the prison, so to speak.”
Reporter
“You have the resources. I think you have one doctor, but I don’t know if there’s specialization that’s required to treat them.”
Virgilio Murillo
“No. And we have one psychiatrist which is a government psychiatrist. And he comes once a week to offer psychiatric treatment to these patients whether it’s medication or evaluation. So they are being dealt with, but of course I’m sure the prison will be able to use another psychiatrist if there woul be one. Unfortunately, the country doesn’t have many psychiatrists that would want to work in the prison. That’s for sure.”
Reporter
“Do they have to be isolated, separated?”
Virgilio Murillo
“Not in all cases. The acute ones, the ones that are considered acute, yes. And we would only do that to prevent them from harming others, or maybe even harming themselves, or getting harmed by others because of their behavior.”
Reporter
”Have people developed it in there or do they come with those issues?”
Virgilio Murillo
“No. They come to the prison with that. As a matter of fact, these are discovered on admission to the prison because that is a part of, that is a part of the screening process when a prisoner is admitted into the prison. So they’re screened for things like that. And of course we know these things because remember, we have what you call the Belize Health Information System. And the prison has access to that system. It’s a countrywide system. And we can go and review their records. The not me personally, but the prison medical officer can go in and see a person’s medical and mental health situation. And he can prepare to provide for his needs in that regard.”
Belize recently celebrated fifty years of being a member of CARICOM. The organization was founded in 1973 by Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. One year later, on May first, Belize joined the group, further solidifying relations with countries in the region. Every year, Belize participates in CARICOM Week, which is dedicated to recognizing the importance of the group and appreciating the community. Deputy Director General of Foreign Trade, Tricia Gideon told us that this year’s activities will highlight Belize’s fiftieth anniversary with CARICOM.
Tricia Gideon
Tricia Gideon, Deputy Director General, Foreign Trade
“There’s several reasons why it exists and there are people who can delve into the history even better than I can, but one of the primary reasons is we’re small. And when you have many voices advocating for an issue, it makes it easier. As we have had the Guatemala issue at the forefront for years. And it hasn’t been a lobbying, and we haven’t been lobbying alone. We’ve had the support of our colleagues in CARICOM, as we have done for Guyana and their issue with Venezuela. When we look at climate issues, it isn’t done at one member state level. It’s done collectively. The reason we’ve been able to secure one of our biggest trade agreements with the EU is because we did it as a collective. And it is through funding that the EU has given the community that we have benefited from a number of projects. On CARICOM week to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary. We’ve been doing it for years, but this year we are going to have a number of activities, but particularly focused on Belize in CARICOM for 50 years. And we have an exhibition at the library in Belmopan. This will be a moving, a traveling exhibition as well. So other districts can appreciate it. We will also be doing presentation to high school and primary school students in Belmont Pan about what is CARICOM, who is CARICOM, and we will also be working with students in Duluth City, high school students for an art class. to paint what Caricom means to us and to identify some of the Caricom flags. So just a fun week of activities.”
The month of May highlights awareness for many causes. Mental health, skin cancer and hypertension are few of the health awarenesses that the world is paying a little more attention to during the next few weeks. But this month also looks at the plight of people living with Lupus, an autoimmune disease with no cure. This week, Sabreena Daly sat down with Dejanira Thompson, Vice President of the Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis Association. She found out more about the illness and what the association is doing to provide the necessary support. Here’s that story.
Dejanira Thompson
Dejanira Thompson, Diagnosed with Lupus “I remember my mom getting the call and she started crying and I was just ignorant to the fact that I’m like, well, yeah, it’s positive, but like so what? Like, I’ll just take the pills and I’ll be fine. And not knowing that a month from there, my whole life changed.”
Twenty-nine-year-old Dejanira Thompson recounts what it was like learning at the age of fourteen that she was diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune disease.
Dejanira Thompson “My world was literally shifted upside down and I couldn’t eat the things that I wanted that I was used to. I couldn’t be in the sun. I couldn’t do a lot of things. There was a point where I couldn’t even get as excited for things because the emotions would trigger a flare up.”
The incurable medical condition takes various forms. For some, Lupus may be difficult to detect because of its asymptomatic presence. For others, Lupus is quite evident and manifests itself as an organ-eating disease that can be fatal.
Jorge Hidalgo
Dr. Jorge Hidalgo, Internist
“The traditional presentation of lupus is when we go into the internet, we see the famous butterfly rash in the face, skin rashes, and pain in the joints. That is the, the, the most common, figure that we see on the internet. But unfortunately, lupus can be presented in, in a silent mode and, also difficult to diagnose sometimes. Sometimes we have a very atypical presentation of lupus that even takes a couple of years to actually confirm the diagnosis because the presentation is so atypical, you know? But lupus can range from asymptomatic conditions with minimal symptoms to something that can be really aggressive and can compromise a patient really badly.”
Dejanira Thompson
“There are three different types. They have the SLE, which is the skin condition; the systemic lupus, that’s internal, it affects all the organs. They have the discoid lupus, which is the skin one, and then they have the ones that affect the kidneys directly. I have two of those. I have the systemic one and the discoid, which is why I have a lot of scars because of what happened in 2015.”
It’s been more than a decade since Thompson’s diagnosis. The worst of it was in 2015, when she fell into a coma that she has little memory of.
Dejanira Thompson “In 2015 was the scariest one, I would say. My lungs got affected. And I went into septic shock that caused me to go into a coma for eight days.”
Sabreena Daly
“How old would you have been around this time?”
Dejanira Thompson “I was 20. That was in 2015. I was 20.”
Dr. Jorge Hidalgo
“She is a fighter. I’m really glad that she is in the state she is right now. But, she had some periods in the journey of lupus that was a really difficult time for her. She was even admitted into the ICU. She was in an induced medical coma because of complications of lupus. But I’m glad that the team of people that work in the ICU for her, We managed to help her.”
Dejanira Thompson
“I guess it’s so traumatic, and that is why I always say that I tie in lupus with mental health, because it’s very important. I think it was so traumatic that my brain tries to protect me from remembering that, and so I vaguely remember it when people ask me were you in pain? I don’t remember being in pain.”
The Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis Association is an organization that’s seeking to spread awareness and support to the growing number of persons diagnosed and living with Lupus. The association has membership of almost one hundred persons living with this autoimmune disease. Six of seven executives are diagnosed with Lupus. President of the organization, Arlette Gomez shared why this should not be overlooked.
Arlette Gomez
Arlette Gomez, President, Lupus and RA Association “It is very concerning. And what is most concerning too, though, is that a lot of people, there are people walking around with it and not coming out and not. saying I have it, you know, it’s not a stigma. It’s not a shame. You, you are, you are battling something that is very debilitating and, uh, very mentally hard. So come let us help you.”
Dr. Jorge Hidalgo
“Lupus belongs to a condition that is also like rheumatoid arthritis. And these types of conditions are in the same category. And for Belize to be in a small country, the number of patients we see with lupus and all these rheumatological conditions is a lot.”
Sabreena Daly
“Is that concerning to you, doctor?”
Dr. Jorge Hidalgo
“Well, it’s a concern because, of course, there are many things. One is the ability to diagnose. Second, also some of the patients with lupus are required to be on medications, on several medications on a daily basis. Also sometimes, as I mentioned before, the condition can range from minimal symptoms to something very aggressive.”
Sabreena Daly
“Talk to me about why it was important for you to be a part of an association that advocates for persons to understand what lupus is, and of course, um, the support that is needed for persons battling with this.”
Dejanira Thompson
“So, I believe I’ve had it for 15 years. I didn’t think nobody thought that I would survive that long if I’m being honest. And so if I can do it, others can. And that’s the whole point behind the association. That if we can do it, and not everybody has that support like I have in those members, right? And that’s what we want to offer. Let us get together. Hey, you’re not alone. If this doesn’t work for you, let’s get you to the right person. Let’s get you the correct people that can donate. Cause we’re not, we’re not rich by any means, right? That is why we ask for donations. That is why we do these May activities to raise funds because the medications are very expensive.”
During the month of May, the association ramps up its campaign to spread awareness about Lupus and encourages supporters to give in any way that they can. May eighteenth is recognized as World Lupus Day and the association is asking the public to gather in Belize City and walk in support of persons fighting this illness.
Arlette Gomez
“We’re hoping to have that walk on the 18th of May. We usually walk in the evenings because the sun is not our friend. And so our walk usually starts at five in the evening, when the sun is about to go down. And we’re hoping to have that on the 18th of this month. Um, and it normally starts from the Civic Center and goes through downtown to Memorial Park. We ask people to buy the shirts, we ask, um, companies to encourage their staff to buy, or we ask, um, Companies to buy them for their staff and have them wear them on our pop day, uh, which is May 10th. And May 10th is also World Lupus Day. And then if the, if the, if the, um, companies buy the shirts for you, then, you know, you can give a small donation to the association.”
Regarding the shooting death of Elwin Rudolph Lewis, also known as “Bobo Youth,” which took place on Friday, March 22, 2024, police arrested and charged twenty-two-year-old Travis Jamaal Herbert with the crime of murder.
Lewis was gunned down on Friday night in front of Gwen Liz High School on Antelope Street in Belize City. He was driving a motorcycle heading in the direction from Elston Kerr Street towards Central American Boulevard when he was shot dead by someone on another motorcycle heading in the opposite direction.
Police arrested and charged thirty-year-old Lyson James Cacho with the murder of Jordan Waight. The twenty-four-year-old, who also went by the name Jordan Burns, was gunned down on November 23rd on Barbara Harris Street in Belize City.
Despite being rushed to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, Waight was pronounced dead on arrival. Of note is that a previous attempt had been made on his life before his killing.
Police officially arrested and charged thirty-year-old Guatemalan Victor Manuel Castellanos. He stands accused of the murder of Pedro Antonio Hernandez and aggravated assault against Amelia Hernandez.
On Tuesday, Hernandez was murdered in his own yard after being lured outside by his assailant. Hernandez was chopped to death upon exiting his house.
