Brenda Hood is a Grenadian politician and Cabinet Minister.

Early life and education

Brenda Hood is a certified Social Worker having graduated from York University in Canada in 1986.

Career

In January 1999, Sen. Brenda Hood was elected as a Member of Parliament and was given the portfolio of the Minister of State in the Ministry of Housing, Social Security and Women’s Affairs. In the latter part of that year Sen. Hood was appointed Minister of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Social Security, gender and family Affairs. In January 2002 the division of Culture was added to the portfolio. In addition Sen. Hood held the portfolio of Acting Foreign Affairs Minister on several occasions. From 2007 - 2008 she served as Minister of Communication, Works and Transport.

Prior to her political career Minister Hood was actively involved and served as Chairperson of the National Coalition on the Rights of the Child (NCRC), Grenada Adoption Board and Executive Director of Grenada Save the Children Fund (GRENSAVE).

In addition to the execution of her ministerial duties Minister Hood has shared her skills and wealth of experience by serving several Governmental, Regional and International committees, such as the Prison Review Committee (2002 and present), Multi Partite Committee, Mercy Committee, National Emergency Relief Organization (NERO), Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), Human Resources Technical Committee of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and Inter-Parliamentary Forum of the Americas (FIPA) of which she is an executive member.

Hood also played a major role in the aftermath of hurricane Ivan when she was charged with the responsibility of leading the relief operations for the entire country during the period September 2004 to February 2005.

In May 2014, Hood was appointed Minister of Culture in the Keith Mitchell Administration.

In the 1 July 2016 Cabinet reshuffle, Hood was appointed Minister in the Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Culture and Cooperatives, with responsibility for Culture and Cooperatives.

In the Cabinet resuffle of 1 September 2017, Prime Minister Mitchell announced that Hood was retiring from parliament, but would continue as an Advisor to the Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation and Culture.