Caribbean News
Belize Celebrates International School Meals Day
Belmopan, March 15, 2025 – As the world marked International School Meals Day on Thursday, March 14, Belize highlights the success and expansion of its National Healthy Start School Feeding Programme (NHSFP). The initiative is ensuring that thousands of students receive nutritious meals daily to support learning, health, and well-being.
Managed by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Technology (MoECST), the NHSFP provides either breakfast or lunch to nearly 15,000 students, covering 11% of primary school children and 30% of secondary school students across the country. This marks a significant milestone in Belize’s commitment to nutrition security and education.
A Sustainable Model for School Feeding
The NHSFP utilizes a decentralized model, where meals are cooked fresh each day at individual schools. This shift from a centralized catering model to a school-led approach, resulted from lessons learned through pilot programs under the AMEXCID FAO Mesoamerica Hunger Free Program and the Mexico-CARICOM-FAO Initiative “Cooperation for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in the Caribbean” or Resilient Caribbean Initiative. This sustainable school feeding model has been successfully scaled up to 75 schools nationwide, reinforcing food sustainability, local economic growth and student health.
To support this initiative, Belize joined the RAES Network and the School Meal Coalition in 2024, further aligning national efforts with global best practices in school feeding.
Menu Innovation & Training for Better Nutrition
A key feature of the programme is the development of national school menu handbooks, created by Belizean nutritionists with support from FAO. Recently, a high school menu has been created, with portion sizes and recipes tailored towards older students. This joins the primary school menu, to ensure nutrition needs are considered for all student ages. The guides provide a 5-week menu cycle, focusing on balanced, nutrient-rich meals using local ingredients. Additionally, the handbooks contain kitchen operating procedures to promote food safety, and menu planning guides. School cooks receive training on these topics to promote the production of safe, quality meals.
Further capacity-building initiatives are planned for 2025 in partnership with FAO.
Strong Partnerships Driving Success
The NHSFP is strengthened by collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW), the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise (MAFSE), and key international partners including UNICEF, PAHO, and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID) —through its initiative jointly led with FAO, the Mesoamerica Hunger-Free program— , which has provided
policy guidance and technical support since 2015.
Funding for the 2023-2024 expansion, totaling $3 BZD per child per day, was made possible through the Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) via the 2022 Bilateral Cooperation Programme. These funds help schools renovate kitchens, improve food safety, and expand feeding coverage.
Innovative Monitoring for Greater Impact
Belize is also pioneering technology-driven monitoring of its school meals programme. A QR code-based student meal attendance app is currently being piloted in high schools,with the aim of integrating school feeding data into the BEMIS electronic tracking system. This initiative will help analyze trends, support decision-making, and improve programme efficiency.
As Belize celebrates International School Meals Day, the expansion of the National Healthy Start School Feeding Programme underscores the country’s commitment to ensuring every child has access to nutritious meals, paving the way for better education outcomes, healthier communities, and a more food-secure nation.
For more information, visit:
FAO School Food Global Hub – https://www.fao.org/platforms/school-food/around-the-world/latin-america-and-the-caribbean/belize/en
By Deandrea Hamilton | Magnetic Media
October 14, 2025 – It’s being called political theatre — but for citizens, constitutional watchdogs, and democracy advocates across the Caribbean, it feels far more serious. Within a single week, two national parliaments — in Trinidad and Tobago and St. Kitts and Nevis — descended into turmoil as opposition members stormed out in protest, accusing their Speakers of bias, overreach, and abuse of parliamentary procedure.
For observers, the walkouts signal a deeper problem: erosion of trust in the very institutions meant to safeguard democracy. When Speakers are viewed as political enforcers instead of neutral referees, parliaments stop functioning as chambers of debate and start performing as stages for power and spectacle — with citizens left wondering who, if anyone, is still accountable.
October 6: St. Kitts Parliament Erupts
The first walkout erupted in Basseterre on October 6, 2025, when Dr. Timothy Harris, former Prime Minister and now Opposition Leader,
led his team out of the St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly in a protest that stunned the chamber.
The flashpoint came as the Speaker moved to approve more than three years’ worth of unratified parliamentary minutes in one sitting — covering 27 meetings and three national budgets — without individual review or debate.
Dr. Harris called the move “a flagrant breach of the Constitution and parliamentary tradition,” warning that the practice undermines transparency and accountability. “No serious parliament can go years without approving a single set of minutes,” he said after exiting the chamber.
The Speaker defended the decision as administrative housekeeping, but critics were unconvinced, branding the move a “world record disgrace.” The opposition’s walkout triggered renewed calls for the Speaker’s resignation and sparked a wider public discussion about record-keeping, accountability, and respect for parliamentary norms in St. Kitts and Nevis.
October 10: Trinidad Opposition Follows Suit
Four days later, on October 10, 2025, the Opposition United National Congress (UNC) in Trinidad and Tobago staged its own walkout from the House of Representatives in Port of Spain.
The UNC accused the Speaker of partisan bias, claiming she had repeatedly blocked urgent questions, ignored points of order, and allowed government members to breach standing orders without consequence.
“The Speaker has failed in her duty to act impartially,” the Opposition declared in a statement. “Parliament is not the property of any political party or Presiding Officer.”
The dramatic exit was seen as a culmination of months of rising tension and frustration, with opposition MPs arguing that parliamentary rules were being selectively applied to silence dissenting voices.
Political analyst Dr. Marcia Ferdinand described the twin walkouts as “a warning sign that parliamentary democracy in the Caribbean is teetering on the edge of performative politics.”
“When chairs become political shields rather than constitutional referees,” she said, “democracy becomes theatre, not governance.”
A Pattern Emerging
While St. Kitts and Trinidad are very different political environments, both incidents point to the same regional fault line: the perception that Speakers — the guardians of parliamentary order — are no longer impartial.
In Westminster-style systems like those across the Caribbean, the Speaker’s authority depends not on power but on public confidence in fairness. Once that credibility erodes, parliamentary control collapses into confrontation.
Governance experts say the implications are serious: eroded trust between government and opposition, declining public confidence in state institutions, and growing voter cynicism that “rules” are flexible tools of political advantage.
Why It Matters
Parliamentary walkouts are not new in the Caribbean, but what makes these recent events different is their frequency and intensity — and
the regional echo they’ve created. Social media has amplified images of lawmakers storming out, with citizens from Barbados to Belize questioning whether the same erosion of decorum could be happening in their own legislatures.
Analysts warn that if this perception takes hold, it risks diminishing the moral authority of parliamentary democracy itself.
“Once opposition MPs believe the rules are rigged, and once citizens believe Parliament is just performance,” said one Caribbean governance researcher, “you’ve lost the most valuable currency in democracy — trust.”
Restoring Balance
Political reformers across the region are calling for tighter Standing Order enforcement, independent parliamentary service commissions, and training to strengthen Speaker neutrality. Civil society leaders say the public must also play its part by demanding transparency and refusing to normalize partisan manipulation of parliamentary procedure.
Whether these twin walkouts become catalysts for reform — or simply another episode of Caribbean political theatre — will depend on what happens next inside those chambers.
For now, democracy watchers agree on one thing: when opposition leaders feel the only way to be heard is to walk out, the entire democratic house — not just its Speaker — is in danger of collapse.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
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