Fay­ola Fras­er

Sher­ine Mun­gal, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Ei­dec­tic Lim­it­ed, is no stranger to the dy­nam­ic world of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, but it is her un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to pub­lic health and well­ness in T&T and the re­gion that she has poured her­self in­to.

Be­yond run­ning a suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny, Mun­gal’s pas­sion project, U of The Caribbean Health and Well­ness Ex­po­si­tion has blos­somed in­to one of the re­gion’s most im­pact­ful plat­forms for holis­tic health ed­u­ca­tion.

“Every­thing I do has to have so­cial good,” she states em­phat­i­cal­ly. “My lega­cy is in so­cial im­pact.”

This mis­sion has guid­ed her through decades of en­tre­pre­neur­ship and ser­vice in the health and well­ness sphere.

Mun­gal and her hus­band, Stu­art Fras­er, co-found­ed Ei­dec­tic Ltd in 2001 af­ter she spent many for­ma­tive years learn­ing the mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions space at Ross Ad­ver­tis­ing.

Mun­gal felt those years were cru­cial to her pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment, but she knew deep down that her call­ing was to forge her path.

“I want­ed to grow in­de­pen­dent­ly and find my own space in the mar­ket,” she re­calls.

She and her hus­band set up shop in Point Lisas and due to lo­ca­tion and their bud­ding rep­u­ta­tion, the en­er­gy sec­tor quick­ly be­came a ma­jor client base—to­day, 80 per cent of Ei­dec­tic’s work is tied to that in­dus­try.

How­ev­er, while her busi­ness con­tin­ues to thrive in cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Mun­gal’s heart has al­ways been drawn to the in­ter­sec­tion of me­dia, pub­lic ser­vice, and health.

In 2008, re­spond­ing to a deep void in ac­ces­si­ble and cred­i­ble health in­for­ma­tion, Mun­gal launched the Caribbean’s first health and well­ness mag­a­zine.

“It came from a place of want­i­ng to cre­ate health­i­er com­mu­ni­ties,” she said.

The pub­li­ca­tion fo­cused on cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant health con­tent—high­light­ing lo­cal foods, in­dige­nous reme­dies, and pre­ven­tive care that spoke di­rect­ly to Caribbean lifestyles. The goal wasn’t just to in­form, but to em­pow­er in­di­vid­u­als with knowl­edge ground­ed in their lived ex­pe­ri­ences.

The U of The Caribbean Health Di­gest mag­a­zine has con­tin­ued to be pub­lished, but at its in­cep­tion, it be­came a segue for its next ini­tia­tive - a health and well­ness ex­po.

Two years lat­er, in 2010, they in­tro­duced the U of The Caribbean Health and Well­ness Ex­po to fos­ter more in­ter­ac­tive en­gage­ment. What start­ed mod­est­ly grew rapid­ly, cul­mi­nat­ing in 2015 with over 70 ex­hibitors.

Af­ter a hia­tus, the event re­turned in 2024 with re­newed vigour. Held at the Hy­att, the ex­po now in­cludes ex­pert-led con­fer­ences, pan­el dis­cus­sions, and fo­rums.

“It’s open to the pub­lic and free of charge,” Mun­gal em­pha­sizes. “It brings ser­vice and so­lu­tion providers to­geth­er to ed­u­cate and sup­port our na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

In all the years of the ex­po thus far, they have been sup­port­ed by the Min­istry of Health, with the min­is­ter of­ten in at­ten­dance.

The in­spi­ra­tion for this ex­po was de­rived in part from her own fam­i­ly’s health jour­ney—her fa­ther suf­fered a trau­mat­ic spinal cord in­jury in 2007, and nav­i­gat­ing the health­care sys­tem was a frus­trat­ing, iso­lat­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. That per­son­al strug­gle re­in­forced her dri­ve to fill in­for­ma­tion gaps for oth­ers.

In 2024, the ini­tia­tive ex­pand­ed fur­ther with the first Youth Men­tal Well­ness Fo­rum. High schools from across Trinidad and To­ba­go sent stu­dents to par­tic­i­pate in dis­cus­sions on va­p­ing, men­tal health, and fi­nan­cial well-be­ing.

“It was one of the most im­pact­ful things we’ve done,” she said, re­flect­ing on its suc­cess. Ed­u­cat­ing young peo­ple is a core tenet to re­in­forc­ing pos­i­tive health prac­tices and break­ing the cy­cle of neg­a­tive cul­tur­al­ly em­bed­ded health prac­tices.

Mun­gal’s fo­cus on youth ed­u­ca­tion ex­tends to her work with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety, where she serves as an ad­vi­sor for mar­ket­ing and im­pact.

“We’ve reimag­ined how we ed­u­cate on can­cer,” she said.

A cor­ner­stone of their out­reach in­volves em­pow­er­ing youth as knowl­edge car­ri­ers.

“Since 2017, I’ve seen first­hand how stu­dents, once ed­u­cat­ed, can ad­vo­cate pow­er­ful­ly. They want to help their peers and even their par­ents make bet­ter choic­es.”

Their pro­gram­ming of­ten fo­cus­es on lifestyle-dri­ven can­cers, re­in­forc­ing the link be­tween ear­ly ed­u­ca­tion and long-term health.

Look­ing ahead, Mun­gal is es­pe­cial­ly ex­cit­ed about up­com­ing con­ver­sa­tions at the U of The Caribbean Well­ness Ex­po on women’s health, in­clud­ing a fo­rum dis­cus­sion on menopause.

“It’s a top­ic that’s too of­ten ig­nored,” she said, “but it af­fects a huge seg­ment of our pop­u­la­tion.”

These fo­rums, like the rest of the ex­po, aren’t just talk—they come with tan­gi­ble re­sources. At­ten­dees can ac­cess every­thing from ECG screen­ings and acupunc­ture to nu­tri­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions and phys­i­cal as­sess­ments.

“Every booth has an of­fer­ing,” Mun­gal said. “We want to leave peo­ple bet­ter than we found them.”

Her en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it con­tin­ues to in­spire. She takes pride in how Ei­dec­tic, though small in size, has an­swered the na­tion­al call for pri­vate-sec­tor in­volve­ment in so­cial de­vel­op­ment.

“We’re a small com­pa­ny mak­ing big moves,” she said with a smile.

Whether through “Bub­bles for Life” with the Can­cer So­ci­ety or youth-dri­ven cam­paigns, she sees pub­lic-pri­vate col­lab­o­ra­tion as es­sen­tial to na­tion­al progress.

Her long-term vi­sion? Health ed­u­ca­tion that be­gins in pri­ma­ry schools sup­port­ed by part­ner­ships with the Min­istries of Health and Ed­u­ca­tion.

Mun­gal’s ethos of well­ness al­so gov­erns her fam­i­ly life, with some en­joy­ment em­bed­ded in­to their prac­tices

. “We prac­tice mod­er­a­tion, and we try to stay phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive,” she said can­did­ly.

“I’ve fall­en short in tak­ing care of my­self at times—but we don’t sac­ri­fice en­joy­ment.”

Her daugh­ter, now a Har­vard grad­u­ate with a Mas­ter’s in Psy­chol­o­gy, has in­her­it­ed this com­mit­ment to well­ness and dig­i­tal in­no­va­tion. She helped tran­si­tion the well­ness mag­a­zine to a dig­i­tal plat­form, mak­ing it ac­ces­si­ble on Magzter, the world’s largest dig­i­tal news­stand.

“She’s learned the val­ue of ser­vice just by be­ing around us,” Mun­gal said.

Sher­ine Mun­gal is a woman of vi­sion, dis­ci­pline, and heart. From en­sur­ing the pub­lic is well ed­u­cat­ed on well­ness and her con­cert­ed ef­forts in ad­vanc­ing health­care, she con­tin­ues to be a bridge be­tween in­for­ma­tion and ac­tion. In every ini­tia­tive she un­der­takes, there is a qui­et but firm be­lief: that health is foun­da­tion­al to thriv­ing so­ci­eties.

In build­ing plat­forms that in­form, con­nect, and up­lift, she is not just build­ing a busi­ness—she is build­ing a lega­cy.