When pa­tient CC was di­ag­nosed with stage III cer­vi­cal can­cer, say­ing she felt un­rav­elled was un­der­stat­ing it.

Donned in fes­tive shirts, an en­sem­ble of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) Mu­sic Band (TTF­SMB) led by AD­FO Noel Stew­art, de­cid­ed to help quell the COVID-19, Delta and Omi­cron fires of fear, stress and grief, by care­ful­ly spread­ing yule­tide joy to the na­tion, and world, via their mi­ni Christ­mas mu­sic se­ries, A Christ­mas Gift to the Na­tion.

Last week 550 chil­dren from Tamana and Barataria re­ceived toys and good­ies as part of Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion’s #share­more Christ­mas ini­tia­tive. Mar­tin’s Taxi Ser­vice and Coun­cil­lor for Barataria Kim­ber­ly Small re­ceived $13,500 to pro­vide hol­i­day treats for chil­dren in rur­al Tamana and Barataria re­spec­tive­ly.

The New Year is an ide­al time to set new health res­o­lu­tions, but for many of us, stick­ing to those res­o­lu­tions are trou­bled by fears and chal­lenges. How­ev­er, we are for­tu­nate that sci­ence is on our side, shed­ding es­sen­tial hacks on how to turn a goal in­to ac­tion and en­sur­ing tri­umph. It comes down to one word: Sched­ules

If the events of the past year have left you feel­ing emo­tion­al­ly de­flat­ed, you’re not alone. Cheer has been in short sup­ply dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, and you may be in se­ri­ous need of a mood boost. Yet while this slice of time may have been un­usu­al­ly stress­ful, peo­ple of­ten strug­gle to find hap­pi­ness even in nor­mal times. Why is it some­times hard to be hap­py? And is there a way to help peo­ple im­prove their mood and life out­look?

While work­ing with UN Women, I learnt that world­wide we need­ed a rev­o­lu­tion around ac­cess to nu­tri­tion­al­ly sound food, no mat­ter what comes. We NEED food grow­ing with­in walk­ing dis­tance of our home to be sure to sur­vive. What COVID-19 has taught us is the need to be able to eat de­spite every un­fore­seen sup­ply chain chal­lenge, and we need child hunger to END for­ev­er.

Clive Teemul, 54, and his fam­i­ly have been spread­ing Yule­tide cheer in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ties of Bras­so Ve­na­do and Flana­gin Town in cen­tral Trinidad for the last sev­en years. The high­light is the Christ­mas Vil­lage that he has con­struct­ed on his prop­er­ty at Tele­maque Road which bor­ders both com­mu­ni­ties.

An In­tro­duc­tion to Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran’s book, Crime, Jus­tice and Pol­i­tics in a Mul­ti-Racial So­ci­ety, by at­tor­ney Is­rael Ra­jah-Khan, SC. (Pub­lished by Ian Ran­dle Pub­lish­ers, Mi­a­mi)

There was no ma­jor strat­e­gy for what un­folds in the world of so­ca on this day, Box­ing Day. The on­ly goal had been to help the peo­ple. T&T, the home of the Car­ni­val fes­ti­val the world an­tic­i­pates an­nu­al­ly, is un­der duress. Halt­ed by a pan­dem­ic that has all but crip­pled the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, Car­ni­val 2022’s true sta­tus is still un­known, but in true Trin­bag­on­ian style, a ma­jor play­er in the world of so­ca says the re­bel­lion will not be sti­fled.

US Em­bassy Charge de Af­fairs Shante Moore and oth­er of­fi­cials re­cent­ly vis­it­ed the Cen­tro de Salud Co­mu­ni­taria (Com­mu­ni­ty Health Hub) es­tab­lished by the Med­ical Re­search Foun­da­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MRF).

De­spite the dark cloud that con­tin­ues to loom over the globe due to COVID-19 and more so the Omi­cron vari­ant, a bright star shone at Flam­ing Word Cathe­dral bring­ing in the sweet spir­it of Christ­mas.

The de­but chil­dren’s book Grand­ma’s Song: A Chil­dren’s Book About Mem­o­ry Loss And The Gift Of Mu­sic was writ­ten by daugh­ter of the soil, and Ten­nessee-based au­thor Jew­el Alexan­der. While it has not had its de­but in T&T, it is al­ready re­ceiv­ing out­stand­ing re­views, and as one re­view­er stat­ed: “This book should be used in schools world­wide.”