MINISTER of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran has said that his ministry will be working with them more vigorously and innovatively, in an effort to promote healthy lifestyles in the schools’ system.

He told a press conference, in the Ministry’s Brickdam, Georgetown boardroom, on Monday that he hopes, with support from the media, to promote school health clubs and what might be called, at that level, the key opinion leaders among students.
According to him, the students and teachers will become the change agents to influence their adult population in the fight against the epidemic of non-communicable diseases.
Ramsaran mentioned the Ministry’s concern about childhood obesity, which they are linking to the school canteens.
He said the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department of the ministry, in collaboration with the Pan- American Health Organisation (PAHO), conducted a food safety seminar, last month, for school canteen operators and other food handling personnel.
Ramsaran said the ministry will be seeking to work with other partners, including the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) project, as it is a powerful tool to reach out with virtual education.
“We know our kids are exploded in their interests, they make us adults look poorly, sometimes, when they handle themselves on the computer,” he said.
The minister stated, further, that the ministry will be looking at the OLPF network to see how it can influence young people and, hopefully, older folks, with their education for virtual learning and behavioural change patterns.
He also acknowledged that there has not been enough intervention, using the Guyana Learning Channel, which is a powerful television tool.
“So you might very well find that we might be reaching out to some of the operators in the media, who are telegenic, who are health conscious, to come forward to help us create programmes for the learning channel,” Ramsaran indicated.