Amid a year marked by can­celled jazz events and tight­en­ing fund­ing, the I Am Jazz Fes­ti­val is chart­ing a dif­fer­ent course—one de­fined not by re­treat, but by rein­ven­tion.

De­part­ing US-born UWI De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts (DC­FA) eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gist, Prof Jean­nine Re­my, was treat­ed to a spec­tac­u­lar demon­stra­tion of the in­struc­tion she has de­liv­ered over the years when the UWI Arts Per­cus­sion En­sem­ble paid trib­ute to her on March 28.

Stan­dard Two and Three stu­dents from the Jern­ing­ham Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in Ch­agua­nas got the chance of a life­time dur­ing a field trip to To­ba­go re­cent­ly.

Lit­er­a­ture as com­mu­ni­ty will be in fo­cus at the 2026 Bo­cas Lit Fest, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s an­nu­al fes­ti­val of words, sto­ries, and ideas, which launched its pro­gramme last Wednes­day.

Si­mone Leid is a Trinida­di­an po­et and gen­der ad­vo­cate whose writ­ing re­flects a deep en­gage­ment with gen­der and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment work across the Caribbean. Her po­ems come from the women she meets and the con­di­tions she en­coun­ters in her work.

When Os­car-win­ning ac­tress Lupi­ta Ny­ong’o cel­e­brat­ed her 43rd birth­day ear­li­er this month, the im­age she shared with the world was not the usu­al glam­orous por­trait. In­stead, she sat hold­ing a bas­ket filled with 77 pieces of fruit, each rep­re­sent­ing a fi­broid she has car­ried in her body over time.

What be­gan dur­ing child­hood as a form of ther­a­py for Ja­son Granger even­tu­al­ly turned in­to a long-last­ing pas­sion. Fo­cused on main­tain­ing au­then­tic­i­ty and cre­at­ing a sense of com­mu­ni­ty, the Ari­ma au­thor is now steadi­ly build­ing his cat­a­logue chap­ter by chap­ter.

Many women qui­et­ly shoul­der life’s hard­est sea­sons—hid­den be­hind ca­reers, fam­i­ly roles, and ex­pec­ta­tions. With her de­but book, Dear Sis, This Too Shall Pass: Let­ters of Hope, Heal­ing and Sis­ter­hood, Sun­ny Gopaul hopes to re­mind them they are not alone. A woman of faith and long­time ad­vo­cate for women and youth de­vel­op­ment, Gopaul has spent more than a decade cre­at­ing spaces for women and girls to grow, re­flect, and sup­port one an­oth­er. Her new book con­tin­ues that mis­sion. “Every woman car­ries a sto­ry,” she says, “and every sto­ry de­serves to be heard.”

As a gy­nae­col­o­gist, one of the most fre­quent con­cerns I hear from young women re­volves around ir­reg­u­lar pe­ri­ods. While oc­ca­sion­al vari­a­tions in the men­stru­al cy­cle can be com­plete­ly nor­mal—es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing ado­les­cence or times of stress—per­sis­tent ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty is of­ten the body’s way of sig­nalling that some­thing deep­er may be go­ing on. One of the most com­mon un­der­ly­ing caus­es is Poly­cys­tic Ovary Syn­drome, or PCOS.

The NGHS Non No­bis Foun­da­tion host­ed its an­nu­al In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day Sem­i­nar, “Pur­ple Pow­er for Progress 3” at Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School, bring­ing to­geth­er women from across the com­mu­ni­ty for a day of mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion, re­flec­tion and em­pow­er­ment.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, food is not on­ly our fu­el source, but it’s al­so our cul­ture, tra­di­tion and com­fort. Dif­fer­ent cook­ing meth­ods for lo­cal cui­sine can be sat­is­fy­ing, but there are con­cerns which arise be­cause of our eat­ing habits. Lifestyle dis­eases that are com­mon among women in­clude ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes, Type 2 di­a­betes, and high blood pres­sure, to name a few. Every­day meals can be al­tered to have a pow­er­ful im­pact on women’s health.

Raised in Riv­er Es­tate, Diego Mar­tin, vi­o­lin­ist Mar­cus Nel­son, known pro­fes­sion­al­ly as Mar­quis Musiq, has trans­formed mod­est be­gin­nings in­to an in­ter­na­tion­al per­form­ing ca­reer.