For An­gela Bhag­wan­deen, art is not mere­ly a pas­sion but a care­ful­ly sus­tained way of life, shaped by cre­ativ­i­ty, dis­ci­pline, and an un­wa­ver­ing con­nec­tion to na­ture.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has long pro­duced lead­ers who make waves on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, and Roger Ramb­harose is a shin­ing ex­am­ple. From hum­ble be­gin­nings in south Trinidad to com­mand­ing op­er­a­tions for one of the world’s largest quick-ser­vice restau­rant net­works, Ramb­harose em­bod­ies the phi­los­o­phy that has guid­ed his jour­ney: “What you think is what you be­come.”

The Heal­ing Hub, which cre­ates safe, in­ten­tion­al spaces that pri­ori­tise dig­ni­ty, trust, and holis­tic sup­port for in­di­vid­u­als nav­i­gat­ing se­ri­ous ill­ness, was for­mal­ly in­tro­duced to key stake­hold­ers at an in­ti­mate soft launch held on De­cem­ber 20 at the home of its founder Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith.

WPC Quian­na Ma­habir has every rea­son to be grate­ful. A year ago her life hung pre­car­i­ous­ly in the bal­ance af­ter she was shot three times just out­side her Ca­roni home on the morn­ing of Oc­to­ber 22, 2024–an ex­pe­ri­ence of which she has no mem­o­ry but has the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al scars to prove it.

Dri­ven by a pas­sion for pre­serv­ing To­ba­go’s culi­nary her­itage, Danielle Stew­art opened a restau­rant in Black Rock in 2019 with a busi­ness part­ner, ded­i­cat­ed to serv­ing tra­di­tion­al To­bag­on­ian dish­es.

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) of­fi­cial­ly launched its 30th an­niver­sary com­mem­o­ra­tive mag­a­zine on De­cem­ber 20, cel­e­brat­ing three decades of ad­vo­ca­cy, growth and ser­vice to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

When Carl Ja­cobs, di­rec­tor of live-en­ter­tain­ment in­ti­mate space Kafe Blue, and Louis “Mag­ic Fin­gers” Nurse, di­rec­tor of mu­si­cal out­fit Louis and the Lynx, en­tered Saint Mary’s Col­lege (CIC), nei­ther imag­ined that more than six decades lat­er they would still be bond­ed through mu­sic.

St Joseph’s Con­vent, San Fer­nan­do, burst in­to full hol­i­day mag­ic on De­cem­ber 11, as stu­dents packed the Dr Sis­ter Phyl­lis Wharfe Au­di­to­ri­um for the school’s much-an­tic­i­pat­ed An­nu­al Song and Dance Christ­mas Con­cert and In­ter-House Com­pe­ti­tion, The Star of Beth­le­hem. By the end of the evening, House Blessed Ann Marie had com­plet­ed a clean sweep, cap­tur­ing top ho­n­ours in all three ma­jor cat­e­gories.

For Shen­nelle Mo­hammed, cre­ativ­i­ty is not a lux­u­ry—it is a call­ing. “Women are very cre­ative, and that qual­i­ty shouldn’t be hid­den,” she says sim­ply, with the con­fi­dence of some­one who has learned to trust her in­ner com­pass. “I’m not afraid to show what I be­lieve in. I’m pas­sion­ate about God, fam­i­ly, good health and unique­ness.”

Ritu Menon be­gan writ­ing af­ter the as­sas­si­na­tion of In­di­ra Gand­hi in 1984. Gand­hi, In­dia’s first woman prime min­is­ter and one of its most pow­er­ful po­lit­i­cal fig­ures, was killed at a mo­ment of deep na­tion­al rup­ture, fol­lowed by wide­spread vi­o­lence in North In­dia. The events of that year prompt­ed Menon to ex­am­ine how po­lit­i­cal up­heaval is ab­sorbed and re­mem­bered, par­tic­u­lar­ly by women.

The Trin­ba­go Young Starz Acad­e­my U17 boys crick­et team is quick­ly emerg­ing as one of the bright­est prospects in youth crick­et across the re­gion. Filled with raw tal­ent, fierce de­ter­mi­na­tion, and a pas­sion for the game, this young squad em­bod­ies the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go crick­et.

Wan­da Bernard dis­tinct­ly re­mem­bers walk­ing back on­to the Bish­op Anstey High School (BAHS) com­pound in April 2008 with noth­ing but mere cu­rios­i­ty and a deep de­sire to serve. A grad­u­ate of the school in the late 1980s, she had re­turned sim­ply to at­tend an an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing of the Old Hi­lar­i­ans’ As­so­ci­a­tion, ea­ger to learn what had be­come of the in­sti­tu­tion that shaped her ear­ly life.