Last Saturday, January 13, 2024 at the Kingstown Baptist Church, volunteers from the Central Georgia Technical College in the USA, and the Kingstown Baptist Church, in collaboration with the St Vincent and the Grenadines Community College Division of Nursing Programme; the Nutrition Unit in the Ministry of Health; and the Trinity School of Medicine, hosted almost 300 children and adults in a 3-hour unique health fair.

The Teddy Bear Clinic was one in which the volunteers used teddy bears as props, gave the 90 children a sort of crash course on healthy personal care habits, engaged them in health checks, and where they were coached to not be afraid of doctors, nurses, and associated health procedures.

Ronique Forbes an intern at the Ministry of Health, Wellness, and the Environment in conversation with kids as a parent looks on. (photo by Robertson S Henry)

Accompanying parents and other adults who turned up were given free basic health checks and counselling, and were encouraged to visit the spiritual health booth.

Community minister at the Kingstown Baptist Church (KBC), Bernadette Richards-Duncan told SEARCHLIGHT, “we figured that if we can coordinate with this program, it could expose the children at an early age to the fact that medical personnel are just like their mommies and daddies wanting them to be well.”

Richards-Duncan added that they aimed to “give them the opportunity to experience this in a fun atmosphere…to show them that medical procedures are not really that threatening…it is just part and parcel of life. So we’re basically trying, from our standpoint, to address that early with the children and give them a fun time to come together to run off to be around children.”

She further explained that the church does outreach programs that are aimed at helping the community, “and we also have the nutrition unit which I’m excited about here with us. I am totally appalled to know the amount of sugar that we are taking in in some simple snacks.”

The booth that attracted the most attention was the one displaying samples of popular drinks and snacks, with a physical example of the amount of sugar each contained taped to the sample. Adults and children seemed equally horrified at the amount of sugar these snacks and drinks contained.

Supervising that booth was Ronique Forbes, an intern at the Ministry of Health, Wellness, and the Environment who told SEARCHLIGHT that “a lot of the adults and the kids were very surprised.” She drew attention to the sugar content in some drinks that are either imported or manufactured locally. The volume of sugar in the examples noted ranged from 63 grammes of sugar in one imported beverage, to 14 grammes in another made locally. She said that persons should always remain conscious of what they are taking into their bodies. The nutritional facts are mostly printed on the containers of these drinks.

Meanwhile Joe-Ben Rivera-Thompson who is the director of marketing, public relations, and international outreach at Central Georgia Technical College, told SEARCHLIGHT that “Central Georgia Technical College partnered with Trinity School of Medicine and also St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College to help and improve health care by bringing students from our college, to the island to work alongside nurses and doctors and whoever else in the healthcare profession to better equip our students, but to also impart knowledge across both the people here on the island and back home in Georgia.”

He said it is a two-prong exercise.

“Part one is that attention is given to kids, young kids in terms of helping their parents understand their health status, and the other part is that… medical students are getting training and also get the opportunity to ascertain what can be done to further improve the health situation,” in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Another Teddy Bear Clinic is on the planning board, as Richards-Duncan said, “it is something that we can see benefiting our Vincentian children. Even the fact that there are some children who, unfortunately, may not be in a position to have their own little teddy bear to cuddle…we can find the mechanism whereby we can reach out, bring them into St Vincent, and use this outreach clinic in different areas just for the benefit of these children.”