Learie Con­stan­tine Park in Ma­coya came alive last Sat­ur­day night as the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) host­ed a ma­jor leg of the Wel­come to the Gayelle se­ries.

The stage is set for a night of wit, rhythm and so­cial com­men­tary as the fi­nals of the Cou­va Ju­nior and Se­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tions draw near. Fol­low­ing an in­tense screen­ing process held last week­end at the Bal­main Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, the best young and sea­soned voic­es in ca­lyp­so have earned their places in the spot­light.

“She Come To Jam,” held at the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage on Fri­day, brought to­geth­er an ex­tra­or­di­nary line­up of fe­male so­ca pow­er­hous­es—Nailah Black­man, Na­dia Bat­son, Patrice Roberts, Ter­ri Lyons, De­stra Gar­cia, Fay-Ann Lyons, Nes­sa Prep­py, Jadel, Dru­patee and Nisha B.

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.

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.

In a cel­e­bra­tion filled with joy, laugh­ter, and heart­felt mo­ments, Guardian Me­dia’s own Em­manuel Downes, the Elec­tri­cal Tech­ni­cian from the Sup­port Ser­vices De­part­ment, and Jen­nifer Nor­ton, the Clas­si­fieds Sub­scrip­tions Su­per­vi­sor, ex­changed vows on De­cem­ber 26, 2025, sur­round­ed by cher­ished fam­i­ly and friends.

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.

“I in­sist­ed on as­sert­ing my In­di­an iden­ti­ty.” Nan­di­ta Hak­sar. The Colours of Na­tion­al­ism: A Mem­oir of Dreams, Hopes and Be­tray­als (Speak­ing Tiger Books, 2024).

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.

Bed­time is usu­al­ly a fun time for Suzette Smith and her six-year-old son, Kay­den. That’s the time when the sto­ries about her child­hood pets would come to life. A year ago, Smith pub­lished one of those sto­ries, The Ad­ven­tures of Skeezy and Num Num—the first in what she ex­pects to be a se­ries.

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.

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.