Make Barbados beacon for wellness institute – lecturer

A senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus is proposing that a Caribbean wellness research facility be established at that university’s campus in Bridgetown.

The idea was floated on Wednesday night by Dr Sherma Roberts, senior lecturer in tourism at the Cave Hill School of Business and Management, as she suggested that such an institute could help generate needed income while providing research on wellness for the region.

Dr Roberts was addressing the virtual, inaugural Professorial Lecture hosted by the School of Graduate Studies at the Cave Hill Campus, under the theme The National Workplace Wellness Policy for Barbados: Building Well Individuals, Well Workplaces and Well Societies.

“As we as a faculty contemplate the Vice Chancellor’s charge of the revenue revolution, maybe we can consider a Caribbean Wellness Research Institute, centred at the Cave Hill Campus under the distinguished leadership of none other than Professor Dwayne Devonish,” declared Roberts.

Devonish, a professor of management and organisational behaviour at the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management, delivered the inaugural lecture on Wednesday.

Pointing to the value of the global wellness industry and its potential for growth in coming years, Roberts suggested that Barbados could get a major piece of that proverbial pie by having a Caribbean Wellness Institute established here.

“There is the Global Wellness Institute that provides estimates on the global wellness industry, which currently is worth about US$4.5 trillion, with a projected growth of 7.5 per cent by 2023. These are only tourism projections. They do not include the potential spend by other sectors, organisations and governments on wellness policies, programmes and initiatives,” she said.

“This institute would be a Caribbean beacon and catalyst for cutting-edge research, investment facilitation, advisory services, conferences and societal changes like leisure centres in communities and bike lanes on highways. Like my Deans, I am planting a seed,” said Roberts, who is also Deputy Dean for Research and Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Cave Hill Campus. (MM)