When Amira Mungal was a teenager, her mother Sherine started U The Caribbean Health Digest, a quarterly print magazine that focussed on a wholesome approach to the health, lifestyle, and well-being of Caribbean people. Eleven years later, Mungal has taken over the reins as the new editor in chief and has guided the publication into the digital sphere.

'I have always seen what went into it and it was all so very interesting. From as young as primary school I was interested in health and writing, so I did a few articles for the magazine, just for fun, and then I couldn't stop,' Mungal told WMN in a WhatsApp interview from Washington DC.

'Mummy always told me when I graduated from college I had to take over the magazine.'

In 2020, she graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a first degree in psychology. In August, she started a master's in the same discipline at Harvard University.

'It's very exciting. It's still virtual for now because Harvard won't do in-person classes until enough of the school population is vaccinated.'

She is also certified in medical writing with the American Medical Writers Association - something she did while she was an undergraduate student, and which is serving her well now and which she believes will play a big role in her future goals.

Under Mungal's watch, U relaunched a digital version of its publication in July and is currently hosted on ISSUU, a digital platform on which people are able to upload their publications and send to their database where subscribers can get free access.

The magazine is also available to a global population through Magzter, one of its world's largest digital news stands. Mungal said Magzter has over 75 million users worldwide and offers over 11,000 publications in 40 categories. U is the only health publication from the Caribbean on the news stand.

Even before she took over responsibility of the magazine Mungal had a vision of how she wanted it to develop in the digital world, how it could expand in the market while staying relevant. Going digital, she said, was inevitable.

'U was always about educating and informing people on making healthier life choices. I wanted to keep the promise even if the magazine format had to change to keep up with the times.'

She said, after a decade of a print publication, getting to the digital stage had its challenges, with the biggest being convincing her team to make the switch.

'U was done in print for so long, the big question was if people in the Caribbean would be interested in seeing to seeing it in digital form…We wanted to stay true to Caribbean people and make it accessible to them over anybody else. As it turns out, we in the Caribbean are way more digitally inclined than we thought. And the good thing with the digital is that Caribbean people in any part of the world can access it. Making the switch has been gratifying. I feel really good, like I'm accomplishing something.'

And while most readers can enjoy the contents of U with a simple click, Munga