FORPEL is the Central American regional forum for heads of Parliament. We haven't heard of them in Belize before but they held a high level meeting today.
Leading Belize's delegation is the Speaker of the House of Representatives Michael Peyrefitte and he explained Belize's emerging role in the group:..
Michael Peyrefitte - Speaker of the House
"What we do as elected presidents is to attempt to form this group and form committees so that we can come up with ideas that hopefully will turn to policies and laws. Different countries have different responsibilities, in the last couple of months the executive secretary for FORPEL Dr. Santiago asks me if we could promote for Belize to be the chairman of the education and health committee for FORPEL."
"Of course I liaise with the Hon. Patrick Faber, the Minister of Education and he jumped on the opportunity for Belize to represent for education held in FORPEL and what we are doing here for the first time ever in Belize we have a FORPEL meeting and we are trying to come up with different resolutions that Belize will strive for and represent and contribute to the parliament of Central America."
"We realize that in certain countries; Guatemala, El Salvador children - half of them is not in school and the other half who are in school are not eating healthy. Nicaragua passed a very radical executive order in which for example; the band all soft drinks, all junk food to be served in primary schools for example. So Belize will lead the charge against children being unhealthy who are in school and not general state of being unhealthy and how it affects their education."
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