The ver­dict is in: all those episodes of Law & Or­der didn’t go to waste. For Danielle Thomp­son, the icon­ic chimes of the pop­u­lar court­room dra­ma were the open­ing state­ment of her life. Even as a young girl, she was al­ready locked in. She watched lawyers fight­ing for jus­tice and win­ning, and she told her­self there was noth­ing else she want­ed to do.

Ter­ri Lyons has al­ways be­lieved in her­self—even when oth­ers doubt­ed or did not share her vi­sion. The dec­o­rat­ed singer, song­writer and ac­tress cred­its her achieve­ments and con­tin­ued con­fi­dence to faith, re­silience and sac­ri­fice.

Kee­mya Williams has been through more chal­lenges than the av­er­age teenag­er would have ex­pe­ri­enced at her age, but she re­fus­es to al­low them to de­ter her from liv­ing in the present and plan­ning for the fu­ture.

For Dr Sue Ann Bar­ratt, un­der­stand­ing gen­dered con­flict has al­ways be­gun with a de­cep­tive­ly sim­ple ques­tion: how do our be­liefs about gen­der shape the way we treat each oth­er? A com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al turned aca­d­e­m­ic, Bar­ratt is at present a Lec­tur­er and the Head of the In­sti­tute for Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus. As the world ob­serves In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day in 2026 un­der the theme “Give to Gain,” Bar­ratt, who has spent more than two decades ex­am­in­ing ex­pec­ta­tions around fem­i­nin­i­ty, mas­culin­i­ty, and sex­u­al­i­ty, of­fers a pow­er­ful re­minder that mean­ing­ful change be­gins with chal­leng­ing the as­sump­tions that struc­ture our re­la­tion­ships and are of­ten foun­da­tion­al el­e­ments of cul­ture.

The steel­band fra­ter­ni­ty is of­ten recog­nised as a male-dom­i­nant space, but at this year’s Na­tion­al Panora­ma Fes­ti­val, with the ex­cep­tion of the pri­ma­ry school cat­e­go­ry, every band that emerged in the fi­nals was cap­tained, man­aged or drilled by women. Spe­cial no­tice was giv­en to the top three in the large con­ven­tion­al cat­e­go­ry.

On Feb­ru­ary 8, when Savi­ta Singh’s name echoed across the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch stage, time seemed to stand still.

On an af­ter­noon in March at the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens in Port-of-Spain, the trees be­come a li­brary, and the coun­try gath­ers to lis­ten. Be­neath the wide samaan canopy, with palms and bam­boo stir­ring in the breeze and sun-baked leaves crack­ling un­der­foot, read­ers lift their voic­es and sto­ries drift through the gar­dens.

As women, we are not giv­en the cred­it we de­serve. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, women are of­ten re­gard­ed as the back­bone of the fam­i­ly. Usu­al­ly, women, whether they are moth­ers, sis­ters, cousins, or friends, are awake be­fore every­one to pre­pare meals, or­gan­ise school bags, head to work, at­tend school meet­ings, care for age­ing par­ents, and some­how clean, and help with home­work to keep every­thing run­ning smooth­ly. When are we ac­tu­al­ly tak­ing a mo­ment to care for our­selves? Our days can be busy, but if we don’t pri­ori­tise our health, we will not be able to pour from an emp­ty pot.

The Ro­tary Club of Cen­tral Port-of-Spain (RC­C­POS) un­veiled a Ro­tary Peace Pole at St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege last Wednes­day, reaf­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to peace­build­ing, youth lead­er­ship and com­mu­ni­ty uni­ty.

For more than half a cen­tu­ry, the re­la­tion­ship be­tween bpTT and the leg­endary Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra has echoed far be­yond the pa­n­yard—res­onat­ing as one of the longest and most en­dur­ing spon­sor­ships in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al his­to­ry.

The vi­brant rhythms of Chow­tal Sam­me­lan once again filled the stage at SDMS head­quar­ters in St Au­gus­tine on Feb­ru­ary 28, as stu­dents from across the coun­try show­cased their mas­tery of this beloved East In­di­an mu­si­cal tra­di­tion.

Trinidad and To­ba­go-born, Lon­don-based so­ca artiste, pan­nist, and ed­u­ca­tor Trini­boi Joocie had the priv­i­lege, for a sec­ond time, of tak­ing so­ca mu­sic to the world-fa­mous Bahia Car­ni­val in Sal­vador, Brazil. This op­por­tu­ni­ty arose through a cul­tur­al ex­change ini­tia­tive sup­port­ed by the British Coun­cil and Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val.