Af­ter con­ced­ing death as his fi­nal op­tion fol­low­ing a ma­jor ac­ci­dent in 2018 that left him par­tial­ly dis­abled, Dale Moolchan stands to­day as liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny that faith, de­ter­mi­na­tion and a strong will can car­ry a per­son through even the most dev­as­tat­ing of cir­cum­stances.

Fa­thers of­ten share spe­cial bonds with their chil­dren. For 80-year-old Chanka Ram­rat­tan, that bond is a shared love for fit­ness and ex­er­cise with his 46-year-old son Nari.

Rash­es in Trinidad & To­ba­go are main­ly due to heat, dirt or al­ler­gy. In­fec­tious caus­es such as measles and Ger­man measles have al­most en­tire­ly been erad­i­cat­ed by the Min­istry of Health’s im­mu­ni­sa­tion pro­grammes. The on­ly “old-time” rash hang­ing around is chick­en­pox. There may or may not be an out­break of chick­en­pox start­ing in T&T if you be­lieve the news­pa­pers and some par­ents, but if the Min­istry of Health knows any­thing else, they are not say­ing. There is a vac­cine that pre­vents chick­en­pox, but it is not of­fered rou­tine­ly in T&T.

There are mo­ments that re­mind us just how deeply the roots of Caribbean and African cul­tures are in­ter­twined, long be­fore we ever cross oceans to meet.

There are eas­i­er ways to spend a hol­i­day than hik­ing through freez­ing tem­per­a­tures, gasp­ing for breath at 12,500 feet above sea lev­el and stand­ing with­in sight of one of the most ac­tive vol­ca­noes in the world.

There comes a sea­son in many women’s lives when they ask them­selves, “What am I meant to build next?”

Azaria Bis­sooon­dath has al­ready learned lessons in brav­ery, dili­gence and re­silience that many adults spend a life­time try­ing to mas­ter. Bis­sooon­dath, hail­ing from Princes Town, cel­e­brat­ed her 13th birth­day on June 11 and is prepar­ing to em­bark on a new chap­ter of her life as she tran­si­tions to sec­ondary school. With an im­pair­ment that many may view as in­sur­mount­able, Bis­soon­dath has faced some of the great chal­lenges of child­hood, such as the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment, with courage and con­fi­dence.

And the Lord said, “I have sure­ly seen the af­flic­tion of my peo­ple, which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by rea­son of their taskmas­ters, for I know their sor­rows. And I am come down to de­liv­er them out of the hand of the Egyp­tians and to bring them up out of that land un­to a good land and a large one, un­to a land flow­ing with milk and hon­ey, un­to the place of the Canaan­ites, and the Hit­tites, and the Amor­ites, and the Per­izzites, and the Hivites, and the Je­busites.

Even as a young boy, Bradley Ram­cha­ran knew he want­ed to be a fa­ther. He had it all mapped out in his head: two chil­dren, a boy and a girl. To­day, the Lib­er­ty Caribbean multi­na­tion­al and gov­ern­ment sales di­rec­tor has ex­act­ly what he wished for.

“Slav­ery was an eco­nom­ic in­sti­tu­tion of the first im­por­tance. It had been the ba­sis of the Greek econ­o­my and had built up the Ro­man Em­pire. In mod­ern times, it pro­vid­ed the sug­ar for the tea and the cof­fee cups of the West­ern world. It pro­duced the cot­ton to serve as a base for mod­ern cap­i­tal­ism. It made the Amer­i­can South and the Caribbean is­lands. The rea­son was eco­nom­ic, not racial. It had to do not with the colour of the labour­er, but the cheap­ness of the labour."

The promise sounds ir­re­sistible be­cause of the thought of los­ing weight quick­ly and curb­ing your ap­petite to achieve the body you’ve been chas­ing for years. Weight loss drugs have def­i­nite­ly gained pop­u­lar­i­ty over the past few years. Mar­ket­ing is high­ly fo­cused on us­ing in­flu­encers and celebri­ties to pro­mote prod­ucts.

For men who show up with­out fan­fare, An­cel Mal­oney’s “Salute” feels like a much-need­ed pat on the back — a hip-hop gospel re­lease cen­tring on fa­thers, step­fa­thers and men­tors in fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties.