Mary Cuffy

Yosho­da See­lochan grew up in the vi­brant is­land na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, where so­ca mu­sic and Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, fea­tur­ing elab­o­rate cos­tumes and pa­rades, are an in­te­gral part of every­day life. Her name, mean­ing “one who brings joy” in Hin­di, re­flects her pas­sion for shar­ing her cul­ture glob­al­ly.

Born in In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga, Yosho­da stud­ied Ed­u­ca­tion and be­came a teacher at St Mary’s Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School. She en­joyed en­gag­ing stu­dents with ac­tiv­i­ties re­lat­ed to Panora­ma and Car­ni­val.

How­ev­er, when her po­si­tion end­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, she pur­sued a new path: teach­ing Eng­lish as a for­eign lan­guage (TEFL). She ap­plied for the Japan Ex­change and Teach­ing (JET) Pro­gramme and be­gan teach­ing in Japan.

For near­ly five years, Yosho­da has taught Eng­lish at el­e­men­tary and ju­nior high schools in Shizuo­ka city, Japan. Her stu­dents of­ten ex­press cu­rios­i­ty about her home­land.

Out­side of school, she con­nects with friends who share her love for so­ca mu­sic. On Sat­ur­days, she meets with Japan­ese women at a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, where they cre­ate art, play games, and pre­pare Trinida­di­an dish­es.

Yosho­da has ob­served that Japan­ese peo­ple ap­pre­ci­ate Trinida­di­an cul­ture for its en­er­gy and vi­bran­cy. Yet, she aims to high­light its deep­er his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance be­yond just feath­ers, beads, and mu­sic. To this end, she has be­gun writ­ing short sto­ries about Trinidad and To­ba­go, which are be­ing il­lus­trat­ed in­to pic­ture books for chil­dren.

To build her pub­lish­ing skills, she first cre­at­ed a stand­alone book ti­tled 1, 2, 3! Watch Mas with Me!, which res­onat­ed with Japan­ese read­ers ea­ger to learn about her cul­ture. This suc­cess led to op­por­tu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go at the Os­a­ka Ex­po 2025 and speak­ing at a cul­tur­al cen­tre, where she demon­strat­ed the “Dol­lar Wine,” a tra­di­tion­al dance from home.

She now main­tains a web­site, mi­ni.tri­ni.sto­ries, to show­case her books. Her pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tives are to ed­u­cate chil­dren in T&T about their her­itage, strength­en con­nec­tions for those in the di­as­po­ra, and en­cour­age glob­al ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the cul­ture in a re­spect­ful and cre­ative man­ner.

Yosho­da re­flects, “My ex­pe­ri­ence as a teacher demon­strat­ed the pow­er of pic­ture books to ed­u­cate chil­dren en­gag­ing­ly. Sto­ry­telling fos­ters con­nec­tions among peo­ple.”

Her jour­ney ex­em­pli­fies a mean­ing­ful way to share the joy of Trinida­di­an cul­ture from Trinidad to Japan and be­yond. If you are pas­sion­ate about sto­ries and cul­tures, con­sid­er cre­at­ing your own.