The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, cou­pled with un­em­ploy­ment and for­eign ex­change be­com­ing less avail­able are a lethal com­bi­na­tion for busi­ness­es in T&T.

With all their fi­nan­cial re­sources, large busi­ness­es, con­glom­er­ates, and in­ter­na­tion­al chains have been im­pact­ed by the triple threat, while small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) have felt the se­vere eco­nom­ic on­slaught even more.

Busi­ness­es have been forced to adapt, in­no­vate and rein­vent them­selves to sur­vive.

The time has come to sup­port lo­cal busi­ness­es and ar­ti­sans.

Can­dle­mak­er Aneel­ia

Aneel­ia Sad­hi­ra Bal­raj, 16, be­gan mak­ing can­dles to help peo­ple with health is­sues and al­so start­ed mak­ing face masks to help her par­ents dur­ing this dire eco­nom­ic time.

Speak­ing from her Bam­boo Set­tle­ment No 2 home, can­dle­mak­er Aneel­ia said, "My mom, Mala Bas­deo, was a self-taught soap­mak­er who want­ed to be­come cer­ti­fied, so she be­gan a soap and can­dle-mak­ing class with the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts.

"When she joined the class, she was un­able to drop me home af­ter school in time and at­tend class, so I had to go with her to the class­es.

"While in the class, I even­tu­al­ly be­gan to be­come in­volved in the ac­tiv­i­ties they would teach. The tu­tor no­ticed how I be­came ac­tive and told my mom that I was do­ing very well and that she should reg­is­ter me in the class.

"Around this time, I be­gan to suf­fer from anx­i­ety. One of the things I learned was to make aro­mather­a­py can­dles, I de­cid­ed to make one for my­self."

She said she felt re­al­ly good af­ter us­ing the aro­mather­a­py can­dle, known to as­sist in anx­i­ety, de­pres­sion, stress, neg­a­tive en­er­gies, or re­lax­ation, and she want­ed to help oth­ers.

Aneel­ia said she be­gan to make can­dles for friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers and they were amazed and loved them, so she even­tu­al­ly be­gan to get or­ders for them and it grew in­to a small busi­ness.

The Lak­sh­mi Girls' Hin­du Col­lege Form Five stu­dent said she com­plet­ed the soap and can­dle-mak­ing course in 2016 and was the youngest to do so at 12 years.

Aneelia Sadhira Balraj

Aneel­ia said she makes aro­mather­a­py, dessert can­dles, spe­cial­i­ty sea­son­al and cus­tom or­ders.

She said for Christ­mas she makes Christ­mas-in­spired spe­cial­i­ty or­ders for gifts, such as her pop­u­lar ap­ple cin­na­mon, pump­kin spice and chai lat­te can­dles that peo­ple seem to fall in love with.

Christ­mas is the busiest sea­son for her since can­dles are a must for many. Some of her in-de­mand items are Christ­mas-themed spe­cial­i­ty can­dles, aro­mather­a­py can­dles, and dessert can­dles.

She said one of her favourite dessert can­dles was a choco­late lat­te–the first lay­er smelled like choco­late, an­oth­er lay­er smelled like caramel, then a lay­er of whipped cream, that smelled like choco­late/vanil­la, gar­nish with lo­cal choco­late nibs and a home-made choco­late chip cook­ie and topped off with a cin­na­mon stick.

Aneel­ia said Or­gan­ic with a Pur­pose was owned by her par­ents, Mala and Bal­raj Bas­deo, and her can­dles com­ple­ment­ed their all-nat­ur­al and or­gan­ic bath and body prod­ucts.

One of Aneelia Sadhira Balraj's beautiful candle displays.

She said she did pop-up mar­kets sea­son­al­ly through­out the year, such as Up­Mar­ket.

Aneel­ia said she was at the South Mar­ket, C3 Cen­tre, Sat­ur­day and will be at Up­Mar­ket, Li­on's Club, Port-of-Spain, Sun­day.

She said she loved the feel­ing of achieve­ment when she looked at her fin­ished prod­uct; it made her proud.

Aneel­ia said her fam­i­ly faced sev­er­al chal­lenges dur­ing COVID-19, one be­ing fi­nan­cial, since both her par­ents were out of work be­cause they were self-em­ployed and un­able to ac­cess raw ma­te­ri­als to con­tin­ue pro­duc­tion and all the pop-up mar­kets were can­celled.

She said it was rough, but they man­aged to cope as she helped her moth­er make masks to sup­ple­ment their in­come.

Aneel­ia said she was study­ing busi­ness at Lak­sh­mi Girls' right now, so she knows this will help her broad­en her op­por­tu­ni­ties busi­ness-wise.

Per­son­al Chal­lenge

About two years ago, Aneel­ia be­gan to ex­pe­ri­ence symp­toms of PCOS (Poly­cys­tic Ovary Syn­drome), fa­tigue, de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety, stress, and pain.

She said with these symp­toms it was very hard to cope with every­day ac­tiv­i­ties. Aneel­ia said she man­aged to pull through with the sup­port of her par­ents. She said she couldn't have done it with­out them and God

Still af­fect­ed by PCOS, Aneel­ia want­ed oth­ers to know that what­ev­er they are go­ing through, they are not alone, and it is still pos­si­ble to con­quer life, not on­ly sur­vive it, while achiev­ing your goals/dreams.

Mala Bas­deo said she en­cour­aged and sup­port­ed her daugh­ter as much as she could be­cause she was hard-work­ing and ded­i­cat­ed to any­thing she puts her mind to.

If you are in­ter­est­ed in Aneel­ia's prod­ucts you can reach her on In­sta­gram @wax­craft­bya­neel­ia

Govia's 'Soul Christ­mas' gift-wrap­ping pa­per a hit

De­sign­er and Op­er­a­tions Man­ag­er for Tribe Car­ni­val Solange Govia has her lo­cal 'Soul Christ­mas' red, white and black col­lec­tion of unique, gift-wrap­ping pa­per and gift tags in­spired by the ex­cite­ment of Tri­ni Christ­mas and cul­ture.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian via Zoom on Wednes­day, Govia said "My hus­band, Dwayne Govia and I have been talk­ing about it for a cou­ple of years. I was in the Car­ni­val busi­ness, so you don't re­al­ly get to en­joy Christ­mas when you're in the Car­ni­val in­dus­try. I was nev­er able to ex­e­cute, but now that things have slowed down, it kind of pushed me in a di­rec­tion that I've been able to do these pas­sion projects on my buck­et list.

Solange Govia

photos courtesy Caitlan

"It's very much about sup­port­ing lo­cal and buy­ing from lo­cal providers be­cause of my back­ground and my fam­i­ly all be­ing artists.

"I nev­er saw a pa­per that ap­pealed to us Tri­nis or to me, it was al­ways rein­deer and snowflakes that didn't speak to me. My hus­band said, 'Why don't you do it'?"

She said she de­cid­ed to de­sign the lo­cal-themed gift pa­per this year, so she reached out on In­sta­gram to her friends and many mas­quer­aders from Car­ni­val who fol­lowed her.

Govia said she asked them what did Tri­ni Christ­mas mean to them–they replied parang, ponche-de-creme, ham, creche, church. She put down the themes on pa­per and that was how the lo­cal­ly-made gift pa­per and tags came about.

She said she start­ed de­sign­ing in late Oc­to­ber, but didn't re­alise it en­tailed a lot of back and forth with the graph­ics team and just get­ting it per­fect to how she want­ed it.

Govia said it was a learn­ing process, it would take some time and she will be bet­ter able to plan next year.

Solange Govia's local 'Soul Christmas' Trini-themed gift-wrapping paper.

She said her plan was to launch her line of gift pa­per on De­cem­ber 1, but her friends told her peo­ple wrapped presents ear­li­er than that, and she re­alised that she need­ed to launch much ear­li­er.

Govia said she didn't ex­pect such an over­whelm­ing re­sponse to her gift pa­per col­lec­tion; her stock was sold out.

She said the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic had im­pact­ed vir­tu­al­ly every busi­ness in some way, and she is hap­py that peo­ple are sup­port­ing lo­cal busi­ness­es.

Govia said the print­ers they worked with were the same peo­ple they usu­al­ly worked with for Car­ni­val events, but busi­ness had slowed down for them and she was hap­py to have that av­enue to sup­port them.

She said they print­ed the gift pa­per, and she hand craft­ed the gift tags her­self.

Govia said they were look­ing to in­tro­duce 'green' prod­ucts and reusable bags in the fu­ture.

She said the gift pa­per was some­thing on her mind that she want­ed to ex­e­cute since it was a way to ex­press her cre­ativ­i­ty while sup­port­ing lo­cal busi­ness.

Govia said giv­en the pos­i­tive re­sponse she will con­sid­er ex­pand­ing the line and take more time to plan.

More about her cre­ativ­i­ty

Govia has ded­i­cat­ed her life's work to the di­ver­si­ty and in­tri­ca­cy of cre­ative de­sign. Un­doubt­ed­ly, this grad­u­ate of Ry­er­son Uni­ver­si­ty has es­tab­lished a rep­u­ta­tion of ex­cel­lence that spans over a decade of qual­i­ty prod­ucts, ex­em­plary cus­tomer ser­vice, and out­stand­ing cul­tur­al con­tri­bu­tions with­in the Car­ni­val fra­ter­ni­ty across the di­as­po­ra.

In ad­di­tion to hold­ing her de­sign­er po­si­tion with Tribe and Bliss Car­ni­val and for­mer role of op­er­a­tions man­ag­er of Harts Car­ni­val, this beloved wife and moth­er is cur­rent­ly the di­rec­tor of Mar­ket­ing at Ul­ti­mate Events Ltd, an or­gan­i­sa­tion that prides it­self on pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty ex­pe­ri­ences in the en­ter­tain­ment cir­cuit. Over the last decade, her de­sign tal­ent and ex­per­tise has al­so been sought af­ter in pop­u­lar di­as­po­ra Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ences in Ja­maica, Cay­man Is­lands, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and Bar­ba­dos, among oth­er coun­tries.

Govia has a pen­chant for de­tail-ori­ent­ed de­signs that dis­tin­guish­es her work in a vast, com­pet­i­tive mar­ket and she has amassed a size­able fol­low­ing that re­flects her widen­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty and at­tribut­ing her per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al growth to un­der­stand­ing the needs of con­sumers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cel­e­bra­tion of women from all walks of life.

Govia sells di­rect­ly to cus­tomers and can be con­tact­ed on Face­book at www.Face­book.com/solange­govi­ade­sign­er and In­sta­gram. The gift pa­per and tags are al­so avail­able at 36 Cor­ne­lio Street, Wood­brook, and pop-ups. Tribe's pop-up will be on De­cem­ber 19.