When Ali host­ed her first sip-and-paint event in 2022, the cou­ple be­gan con­sid­er­ing how they could com­bine their two in­ter­ests.

A po­ten­tial vis­i­tor sees im­ages of Paramin: sprawl­ing hills, fields of herbs, views from La Vigie look­out and a ta­ble laid out for lunch. She adds it to her buck­et list.

World Menopause Day was on Oc­to­ber 18, and this year’s cam­paign high­lights chron­ic pain, in­clud­ing mi­graine, fi­bromyal­gia and pelvic pain. Menopause is usu­al­ly de­fined as the point reached 12 months af­ter the ces­sa­tion of men­stru­al pe­ri­ods, when there is no oth­er ex­pla­na­tion for the ab­sence of men­stru­a­tion. It usu­al­ly oc­curs be­tween the ages of 45 and 55. The years of hor­mon­al fluc­tu­a­tion be­fore that point are called ‘per­i­menopause’.

Af­ter all, they come out of this warm, clean, oily, pro­tect­ed en­vi­ron­ment in­to damp­ness, dust and dank­ness, where, too of­ten, the first thing that hap­pens is that some un­known peo­ple take you away from your moth­er and push, prod and put you in­to a mir­rored jail, where strangers peep at you and make strange sounds.

Male breast can­cer is un­com­mon, but de­layed di­ag­no­sis can al­low the dis­ease to progress be­fore treat­ment be­gins.

For many peo­ple ex­pe­ri­enc­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and abuse, reach­ing out for help can be one of the hard­est steps they take. But even af­ter find­ing the courage to seek sup­port, an­oth­er bar­ri­er can stand in the way: the abil­i­ty to af­ford pro­fes­sion­al coun­selling.

Some­thing mag­i­cal hap­pens when the tra­di­tion­al tan­go dance style meets so­ca, and mem­bers of the pub­lic got the chance to ex­pe­ri­ence it in Port-of-Spain.

Di­vorce can be messy. Ja­son Cox has ex­pe­ri­enced it for close to four years. As a fa­ther of two boys, he has seen it neg­a­tive­ly af­fect his every­day life, so he took mat­ters in­to his own hands. He built an app called Zuko to shield his chil­dren from adult con­flict and help many oth­ers along the way.

Death is one of life’s few cer­tain­ties. We know that every life must even­tu­al­ly end, yet noth­ing tru­ly pre­pares us for the mo­ment some­one or a pet we love is gone.

Oc­to­ber is the Month of Learn­ing Dif­fi­cul­ties, but let’s change that name. How about the Month of Learn­ing Dif­fer­ent­ly? Some brains just work in unique, amaz­ing ways!

Free­town Col­lec­tive will be in the spot­light as the Bo­cas Lit Fest hosts a spe­cial edi­tion of Kaiso Con­ver­sa­tions. It comes as Bo­cas cel­e­brates

Di­vya Go­cool has al­ready dis­cov­ered some­thing that many peo­ple spend a life­time search­ing for — her voice.