I share my ex­pe­ri­ence of cer­vi­cal can­cer with you and any­one who may need to read it, any­one who may need to draw strength from the fact that you are not alone.

That sim­ple prin­ci­ple has guid­ed Adam Bartholomew from a child­hood pi­ano bench in Trinidad and To­ba­go to the glob­al stage of Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty and now, back home, as he pre­pares to bring Har­vard’s Col­lege Steel Pan En­sem­ble to Trinidad for a land­mark cul­tur­al ex­change con­cert lat­er this month.

You are a woman be­fore you are a moth­er. I’ll say that again: you are a woman be­fore you are a moth­er; there­fore, hav­ing a child does not make you a woman. This dis­tinc­tion is im­por­tant be­cause we live in a world where — and some so­ci­eties are worse than oth­ers — for a woman to be con­sid­ered a woman, apart from the phys­i­cal qual­i­fi­ca­tions, she must meet the qual­i­fi­ca­tion of hav­ing had a child. We al­so live in a world that dic­tates to a woman that in or­der for her to be com­plete, con­tent­ed, and ful­filled, she must have a child. But this is prob­lem­at­ic.

Reign­ing Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) Queen Resh­ma Ram­lal has an­nounced that she will not de­fend her ti­tle in 2026, say­ing her de­ci­sion is root­ed in a long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to cre­ate spaces and op­por­tu­ni­ties for oth­er women in the in­dus­try.

Sharon Christo­pher is well known in cor­po­rate cir­cles—from le­gal to bank­ing and fi­nance to lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment—hav­ing com­piled a store­house of knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence that she is al­ways will­ing to share.

Cer­vi­cal can­cer is of­ten called a “silent” dis­ease—and for good rea­son. In its ear­li­est stages, it usu­al­ly caus­es no symp­toms at all. You may feel per­fect­ly well, but mean­while, ab­nor­mal cells are qui­et­ly de­vel­op­ing on your cervix. By the time warn­ing signs ap­pear, the dis­ease may al­ready be more ad­vanced and hard­er to treat. This si­lence is what makes cer­vi­cal can­cer es­pe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous—and why wait­ing for symp­toms can be cost­lier than many peo­ple re­alise.

Dr Juli­et Jones’ ca­reer in ed­u­ca­tion did not un­fold overnight, nor was it dri­ven by am­bi­tion alone. It was built pa­tient­ly—step by step—through class­rooms, cur­ricu­lum rooms and count­less learn­ing mo­ments. To­day, that jour­ney has po­si­tioned her as both a schol­ar and a men­tor to ed­u­ca­tors and oth­ers at home and abroad, gen­er­ous­ly shar­ing her knowl­edge.

PINKnicTT has evolved in­to one of the most an­tic­i­pat­ed pre­mi­um events on the Car­ni­val cal­en­dar, seam­less­ly blend­ing high-end en­ter­tain­ment with a pow­er­ful so­cial mis­sion—rais­ing aware­ness for breast can­cer.

Bright colours, soft mats and neat­ly arranged toys wel­come vis­i­tors in­to the ther­a­py rooms at the Caribbean Kids and Fam­i­lies Ther­a­py Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CK­FTO) satel­lite clin­ic on Ram­saran Street, Ch­agua­nas. While the space may re­sem­ble a cheer­ful play­room, it is in fact a care­ful­ly de­signed ther­a­peu­tic en­vi­ron­ment where chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties, along with their fam­i­lies, are sup­port­ed as they work to­wards stronger, more in­de­pen­dent fu­tures.

As the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son heats up and new so­ca re­leas­es dom­i­nate the air­waves, the Bo­cas Lit Fest is turn­ing the spot­light on ca­lyp­so with the launch of a new dis­cus­sion se­ries, Kaiso Con­ver­sa­tions, ded­i­cat­ed to the art of ca­lyp­so song­writ­ing. The in­au­gur­al event will fea­ture mu­si­cal icon David Rud­der.

The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) of­fi­cial­ly ush­ered in the Car­ni­val 2026 sea­son with the open­ing of the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage last Fri­day at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, sig­nalling the start of an ex­pand­ed and vi­brant cul­tur­al of­fer­ing for the na­tion­al fes­ti­val.

At a time when the world is cry­ing out for peace, love and uni­ty — and as T&T finds it­self un­com­fort­ably close to what in­ter­na­tion­al news has de­scribed as the threat of war — Hum­ming­bird Medal re­cip­i­ent and car­ni­val band­leader Vanes­sa Forde has turned to her own “peace troop”, Clas­six Pro­duc­tions (CP), to cre­ate joy, calm and har­mo­ny.