As we plan for 2021, we al­so rec­ol­lect on the tu­mul­tuous year of 2020. From a health per­spec­tive, it has been one turned up­side down with a dead­ly glob­al pan­dem­ic re­ori­ent­ing how we live our lives and re­late to oth­ers. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has jus­ti­fi­ably dom­i­nat­ed head­lines and at­ten­tion from me­dia, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and health of­fi­cials alike.

Many char­i­ties need a lit­tle ex­tra help par­tic­u­lar­ly in the wake of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, and they re­ly on the le­gion of bril­liant vol­un­teers who help feed the home­less, at­tend to the or­phan­ages or call an old­er per­son who is fac­ing spend­ing time alone.

The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment has ad­vanced an­oth­er step in its ef­forts to mon­i­tor and mit­i­gate against po­ten­tial pol­lu­tion threats from the Gua­napo Land­fill, with a re­cent as­sess­ment ex­er­cise in the area.

But for this to hap­pen, she needs the help of gen­er­ous Samar­i­tans so she can ex­tend the ten by eight room she cur­rent­ly calls home.

At 50, Car­olyn Gopaul says she feels con­tent­ed and fab­u­lous. Hav­ing grap­pled with a mys­te­ri­ous void in her heart and the con­cerns of be­ing a full-fig­ured woman, the act­ing Hu­man Re­sources Man­ag­er of Met­al In­dus­tries Com­pa­ny-In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy (MIC-IT), has found her strength. She has come to em­brace her­self; from her pur­ple, red or blue hair­styles right down to her blinged-out match­ing man­i­cures and pedi­cures.

Christ­mas is no­to­ri­ous­ly a time for overindul­gence, more so in a year when the world came to a halt and the fragili­ty of our ex­is­tence be­came more ev­i­dent. Not be­ing a grinch with your joy this sea­son, but Health Plus want­ed to en­sure, you rev­el in all the fes­tiv­i­ties with­out too much im­pact on your health and waist­line.

In­grid Per­saud, Trinidad-born writer liv­ing in Lon­don, whose de­but nov­el Love Af­ter Love pub­lished in 2020 by Faber in the UK is short­list­ed for the huge­ly pres­ti­gious Cos­ta First Nov­el Award. Per­saud won the Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize in 2017 and the BBC Na­tion­al Short Sto­ry Award in 2018. She read law at the LSE and was an aca­d­e­m­ic be­fore study­ing fine art at Gold­smiths and Cen­tral Saint Mar­tins. Her writ­ing has ap­peared in Gran­ta, Prospect, The Guardian, The In­de­pen­dent, Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic, Five Di­als and Pree mag­a­zines. In­grid Per­saud's Love Af­ter Love short­list­ed for the Cos­ta Prize for a De­but writer as it rep­re­sents a break­through in the Caribbean nov­el while ex­plor­ing uni­ver­sal themes of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, sex­u­al­i­ty, and self-harm. This nom­i­na­tion comes at a time that ap­pears to be a re­nais­sance for women writ­ers in the Caribbean, and par­tic­u­lar­ly Trinidad.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has changed a lot of things: the way we in­ter­act with per­sons, our sched­ules, dig­i­tal screen time, our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, fi­nan­cial pres­sures and more so our stress and fa­tigue lev­els. For some, these changes have not been for the bet­ter.

Shoma Per­sad has em­barked on a jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery and has “fall­en in love with home again.” It all came to­geth­er in per­fect tim­ing says the savvy fash­ion de­sign­er and cre­ative di­rec­tor.

In a year like no oth­er, stunt­ed by the rav­ages of COVID, many have wel­comed the Christ­mas sea­son to light­en spir­its. Some have start­ed by re-fo­cussing on Christ, the rea­son for the sea­son, and church, or by ex­tend­ing a ges­ture of kind­ness. Oth­ers have gone the ways of do­ing slow dri­ve-bys, tak­ing in the be­daz­zling Christ­mas lights around the Sa­van­nah, beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed hous­es along the high­way, in their area or at crech­es at var­i­ous church­es. Play­ing Christ­mas mu­sic, paint­ing and dec­o­rat­ing have al­so been high on the list to achieve that Christ­mas feel­ing and in­ner peace de­spite cir­cum­stances.

In 2020, the world’s at­ten­tion has been fo­cused on the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and how pan­demics af­fect lives and liveli­hoods. COVID-19 is show­ing once again how health is in­ter­linked with oth­er crit­i­cal is­sues, such as re­duc­ing in­equal­i­ty, hu­man rights, gen­der equal­i­ty, so­cial pro­tec­tion, and eco­nom­ic growth, just as HIV/AIDS did when the sit­u­a­tion hit pan­dem­ic pro­por­tions in the 1980s.

“Your kid­neys are fail­ing, and we need to start dial­y­sis.” These are words no pa­tient wants to hear, nor would any med­ical physi­cian like to share. How­ev­er, every day in the Unit­ed States, over 20 pa­tients die wait­ing for an or­gan and more than 120,048 men, women, and chil­dren await life-sav­ing or­gan trans­plants ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO). Re­gret­tably, the need for or­gan donors is much greater than the num­ber of peo­ple who ac­tu­al­ly do­nate.