I am a Christ­mas per­son but since 2014 I have not been cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas. In 2013, my ba­by sis­ter, Rose, was di­ag­nosed with can­cer and she died in March 2014 at the age of 43. She was bright, beau­ti­ful and loved to laugh. Then in 2015, our beloved An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh was di­ag­nosed with pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. He passed away in 2017. He was the ul­ti­mate San­ta Claus, and he too loved to laugh with a twin­kle in his eyes. In 2018, the ma­tri­arch of our fam­i­ly, my moth­er, There­sa, died. No doubt any­one will un­der­stand how it felt—our hearts were bro­ken.

What start­ed as food al­ler­gies have not on­ly led to lifestyle changes for Madon­na Roudett but al­so re­sult­ed in a flour­ish­ing busi­ness ven­ture.

Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma cham­pi­on in 2019, Guaico Pres­by­ter­ian has added an­oth­er ti­tle to their steel or­ches­tra as Roc­co Cy Dmitri Nicholas, a Stan­dard Four pupil, ex­celled at the re­cent San Fest com­pe­ti­tion and was an­nounced cham­pi­on in the pan so­lo cat­e­go­ry.

The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices (MS­DFS) con­tin­ues its ag­gres­sive cam­paign to get so­cial ser­vices to the doorsteps of cit­i­zens in T&T. Since the launch of the Min­istry’s So­cial Out­reach and Im­pact Car­a­van, on Au­gust 30, at the Pa­lo Seco Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, in ex­cess of a dozen com­mu­ni­ties have al­ready ben­e­fit­ed from hav­ing Gov­ern­ment Ser­vices avail­able to them. These com­mu­ni­ties in­clude Fyz­abad, San Fer­nan­do, Point Fortin, Ce­dros, San­gre Grande, Cumana, To­co, Diego Mar­tin and Care­nage, Va­len­cia, Man­zanil­la, Guaico Tamana, and Mor­vant, Port-of-Spain.

Last year there were 20 fi­nal­ists in the Green Screen En­vi­ron­men­tal Screen Film Fes­ti­val's in­au­gur­al Very Short Shorts (VSS) Mo­bile Film Com­pe­ti­tion. This year 25 film-mak­ers ad­vanced to the fi­nal round of the en­vi­ron­men­tal mo­bile film com­pe­ti­tion.

Both Trinidad and To­ba­go are the homes of many at­trac­tive and in­ter­est­ing birds. This group forms a part of na­ture’s gift to us; a nat­ur­al her­itage, which we should recog­nise, cher­ish and pre­serve.

Breast can­cer con­tin­ues to ac­count for the high­est fig­ures in terms of in­ci­dence and mor­tal­i­ty in T&T.

Af­ter last week Sat­ur­day’s con­tro­ver­sial fash­ion show where run­way mod­els in biki­nis turned the sanc­ti­ty of the An­gli­can Cathe­dral in Port-of-Spain in­to a cat­walk, like a breath of fresh air comes Guardian Me­dia Events Man­ag­er turned fash­ion de­sign­er Kristy Ram­nar­ine's Za­mani Caribbean col­lec­tion.

Aimee Ger­vais is six-years-old, she is con­stant­ly bul­lied dai­ly by col­leagues at her school and has even been called “stu­pid” by one of her teach­ers when she at­tend­ed pre-school.

At times we sit on the fence be­tween fact and fic­tion. Do we be­lieve or not? Many pun­dits and obeah men have agreed that mal yeux (pro­nounced mahl-Joe) or na­jarr, or bad eye ex­ists, that neg­a­tive en­er­gies can be trans­mit­ted from one hu­man to an­oth­er, which may oc­ca­sion var­i­ous re­ac­tions. The same can be ap­plied from hu­man to plant and from plant to hu­man.

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) will com­mem­o­rate the day across Trinidad and To­ba­go. Tsunamis while rare for Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­main a haz­ard for which all cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es must be pre­pared at all times.

It was late in April of 1979, when a poor, lone­ly and sad­dened man sat in his lit­tle, wood­en gallery in St Croix Road, Princes Town. Al­most in tears and fail­ing sight, he re­called the 45-year pi­o­neer­ing strug­gle in the mak­ing and per­fect­ing of the dou­bles, a na­tion­al food. He was known as Singh, the dou­bles man, one of the sev­er­al pi­o­neers in Princes Town.