The Latin American-Caribbean Centre (LACC) of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) successfully conducted and concluded its management and coordination

of the global research project Connecting Climate Minds, from 23rd April, 2023 to 31st March, 2024.

The previous report documents the initial work carried out from 23rd April to 31st July 2023, which included the successful bidding process, the negotiation and signing of the agreement between The UWI and Imperial College London, the creation of a regional community of practice, the selection and hiring of support staff, and the preparation of contracts.

The main project activities were executed from 1 August 2023 to 31 July 2024, the current reporting period.

LACC served as the Regional Community Convenor (RCC) for the region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The LACC Director, Ms. Gillian M. S. Bristol, held the position of Project Team Leader. The core team members from The UWI were Dr. Sandeep Maharaj, Director, School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medical Sciences, St. Augustine Campus and Dr. Natalie Greaves, Lecturer in Public Health and Coordinator MPhil/PhD in Public Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Cave Hill Campus. They served as Lead Researcher and Technical Advisor, respectively.

This project, managed by Imperial College London and funded by Wellcome, was undertaken to ensure that the global climate and mental health community would become strongly connected, with a shared understanding and vision across diverse disciplines, and develop into a thriving global eco-system better equipped to respond to barriers and opportunities.

The project’s ambition was the support of a growing, truly global, trans-disciplinary and multi-sector climate change and mental health community to align and come together, and catalyse further work at this vital intersection of two of the greatest global crises. Working inclusively and together, the project achieved two overarching objectives:

• The creation of an ambitious, inclusive and actionable research agenda that provides the evidence needed for policy and practice to safeguard mental health and address the mental health impacts of climate change while enabling climate action, deeply grounded in the needs of people with lived experience.
• The development of a connected, supported and engaged community of practice (regionally and globally) with the right tools to enact this agenda, including greater capacity and knowledge sharing.

This project demanded daily direct management by the project team leader, who engaged on multiple levels on all aspects. Direct and regular engagement with the Project Lead at Imperial, Dr. Emma Lawrance, and her team, as well as within The UWI on legal, administrative, human resources and financial matters. The key components of the project were intra-regional discussions, establishment of a regional community of practice and of focus groups on lived experience and youth, and maintaining a public awareness campaign. The project was characterised by a multi-sectoral, multidisciplinary and multi-country approach to ensure ethical, inclusive and reliable research.

It is important to note that LACC acted with alacrity and high efficiency in all deliverables, meeting deadlines ahead of time.

Research was gathered through two one-day regional dialogues held online in August and October 2023. The multilingual nature of these dialogues (simultaneous interpretation of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish) allowed for a fluid exchange of ideas, experiences and knowledge among experts and stakeholders in climate change and mental health. Sixty- three participants attended the first dialogue and thirty- seven joined the second dialogue.

The project called for the creation of a regional community of practice (RCOP) comprised of experts in research, policy, and practice as well as persons with lived experience of climate change and mental health. The intention is for this community to serve as the resource pool for future research on and advancement of the climate change-mental health subject.

Reaching across the Caribbean, the Americas and the world, persons with cross-cutting expertise and intimate knowledge of the cultural and scientific context of the region were identified and selected to serve as Co-Convenors, including the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA); the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; the Brazilian Planetary Health Hub at the University of Sao Paulo; the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua (URACCAN); the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLASCO) representative in Havana, Cuba; the Technology Institute of Monterrey (TEC) in Monterrey, Mexico; the non-profit organisation EarthMedic and EarthNurse in Haiti; and consultants to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Healthy Brains Global Initiative.

Youth Ambassadors from Ecuador and Guyana represented both sub-regions and contributed perspectives gleaned from personal experience in international youth advocacy.

Crucial, first-hand information on the mental health challenge caused by climate change was provided by a team of people from diverse backgrounds and with lived experience from the Bahamas, Brazil, Haiti, and Nicaragua. They included a student of medicine at The UWI, the leader and advocate of an Indigenous people, a retired fisherman, and a scholar who advocates for Planetary Health investments to build climate resilience and peace.

Consistent communications and public relations were a major component of the project, ensuring project visibility on social media and in the news media. This project signifies a new role for LACC, expanding its portfolio into project management with a view to strengthening its contribution to UWI Global and creating new revenue-generating streams for UWI.

This project has committed £84,000 to The UWI as Regional Community Convenor for the LAC region. Additionally, LACC contributed expertise in conference organisation for the Global Event to conclude the project, held in Barbados in March 2024, for a value of £20,764.

LACC has continued to support the Colombian government’s foreign language programme. This programme is a reciprocal one through which graduates of The UWI are afforded an opportunity to assist in the teaching of English as a second language at Colombian universities, and Colombian teachers of Spanish assist with the teaching of Spanish as a second language at The UWI Campuses. Since 2017, LACC has promoted this opportunity to all UWI campuses.

Seven graduates from Cave Hill, Mona and St. Augustine participated in the 2023–2024 iteration of the programme.

UWI students of Spanish at these campuses benefited from the programme in the academic year 2023/2024, LACC conducted the usual consultations with the campuses and secured the participation of the St. Augustine Campus and the Mona Campus for the academic year 2023/2024, both of which contracted new Colombian teaching assistants, while Cave Hill re- hired the tutor from the previous year.

LACC continued to coordinate the Mexico Chair, a longstanding collaborative programme with the Government of Mexico which was established by Memorandum of Understanding between The University of the West Indies (The UWI) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Mexican States.

Under the renewed Memorandum, signed in May and July 2023 by the respective parties, a Mexican scholar would offer classes and conduct research atthe Mona Campus of The UWI in any discipline. This expanded the options which had previously been limited to select fields. Since its inception in 2016, two professors have held the chair in History and in Climate Change Resilience. During the reporting period, LACC contacted the Mona Campus and the Embassy of Mexico in Kingston and initiated discussions related to the resumption of the programme, post the COVID-19 pandemic, with a view to the identification of a faculty to host the Mexico Chair for the academic year 2024/2025. Those discussions progressed well and the School of Dentistry in the Faculty of Medical Sciences was designated by the Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences and subsequently agreed to by the Embassy of Mexico.