The start of a new school term is ex­cit­ing, but let’s be hon­est, it can al­so make us feel a lit­tle ner­vous. New class­es, new teach­ers, and the thought of a heav­ier work­load can be scary. Every­one feels those but­ter­flies some­times! But what is the se­cret to over­com­ing those nerves? It is keep­ing fo­cus and prepar­ing ear­ly.

From a so­cial jus­tice house­hold in the new­ly in­de­pen­dent Caribbean to the high­est lev­els of in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights ad­vo­ca­cy, Clarke has spent more than four decades mak­ing space for women, chal­leng­ing in­equal­i­ty and in­sist­ing that the strug­gle for jus­tice must con­tin­ue.

In­de­pen­dence Day is a time for na­tion­al pride, and for the Prime Min­is­ter and mem­bers of her Gov­ern­ment, it was al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their per­son­al style. From el­e­gant fas­ci­na­tors and tai­lored suits to bold colours and sub­tle touch­es of the na­tion­al palette, these looks brought a fash­ion­able flair to the cel­e­bra­tions.

More than 200 chil­dren from com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go re­ceived back­packs and school sup­plies through the Hum­ming­bird House Foun­da­tion’s (THHF) an­nu­al Back-to-School Book­bag and Sup­plies Dis­tri­b­u­tion ini­tia­tive.

Stu­dents of the Cas­cade School for the Deaf and the Au­drey Jef­fers School for the Deaf will re­ceive a spe­cial de­liv­ery on Sep­tem­ber 9, just in time for the new aca­d­e­m­ic term. Renowned ed­u­ca­tor, au­thor, and pas­tor Frank M Porter will vis­it the Cas­cade in­sti­tu­tion to dis­trib­ute 15 copies of his Caribbean Rhythm In­te­grat­ed Lan­guage Arts Lit­er­a­cy and Nu­mer­a­cy Pro­gramme, which most of us may know as The Re­pub­lic Read­ers, with an ad­di­tion­al 15 des­ig­nat­ed for the sec­ond school.

Years be­fore the term “pow­er cou­ple” be­came a thing, Carl and Car­ol Ja­cobs were al­ready a de­f­i­n­i­tion of the id­iom. The two have rid­den the mu­sic ex­press for over half a cen­tu­ry as a cou­ple, from do­ing back­ground vo­cals to lead vo­cals on lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stages, with each be­ing able to hold their own in the spot­light.

Founder/CEO and artis­tic di­rec­tor of Can­dice Clarke Acad­e­my of Dance (CCAD), Can­dice Clarke, said she lives by and en­cour­ages the bib­li­cal les­son of Colos­sians 3:23 (NIV): “What­ev­er you do, work at it with all your heart, as work­ing for the Lord, not for hu­man, mat­ters.”

Plié for the Arts cel­e­brat­ed its tenth-an­niver­sary re­gion­al tour with the Amal­ga­ma­tion Glob­al Dance Gala.

This coun­try’s search for a more di­verse eco­nom­ic base re­mains among the more chal­leng­ing en­gage­ments of the cur­rent pe­ri­od.

Twelve-year-old per­cus­sion­ist Ta­fari Lalitte is the 2026 Tal­ent Pot cham­pi­on af­ter wow­ing the judges with a blend of the rhythms that move T&T.

For chut­ney artiste Rawytee Ram­roop, the jour­ney from a 12-year-old girl win­ning the Mas­tana Ba­har com­pe­ti­tion to per­form­ing be­fore thou­sands of mu­sic lovers in South Africa is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of per­se­ver­ance, pas­sion and fam­i­ly in­spi­ra­tion.

Writ­ing mu­sic comes eas­i­ly to Steff Kalloo. Maybe be­cause she has been do­ing it since she was ten, or maybe it’s be­cause the words and melody flow once she is in the right en­vi­ron­ment and has the right mind­set, usu­al­ly with her gui­tar in hand.