This week’s Book­shelf sets fic­tion aside to en­gage with fact. These are the sto­ries of women who are no longer here to tell them. In the Caribbean like every­where else vi­o­lence be­gins at home, be­hind closed doors, in the places meant to of­fer shel­ter. It thrives in si­lence, in what is tol­er­at­ed.

Hav­ing spent 30 years in jour­nal­ism, See­ta Per­sad’s name is syn­ony­mous with writ­ing in this coun­try. How­ev­er, since re­tir­ing in 2019, she’s stepped bold­ly back in­to the spot­light, not for fame, but to nur­ture the next gen­er­a­tion of sto­ry­tellers through the­atre.

When Rachel Welch-Phillips walked across the stage on June 17 in New York City to ac­cept the Ris­ing Star In-House Coun­sel of the Year award, she didn’t just rep­re­sent her­self—she rep­re­sent­ed an en­tire re­gion.

If younger gen­er­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go have nev­er heard the beau­ti­ful sto­ries or ful­ly ex­pe­ri­enced the rich, vi­brant cul­tures of their par­ents’ or an­ces­tors’ moth­er­land, In­di­ra Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo is chang­ing that—one un­for­get­table tour at a time.

On any giv­en day, you might find Dr Ra­ji­ni Haraks­ingh walk­ing briskly through the cam­pus of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) in St Au­gus­tine, where she serves as a lec­tur­er in Biotech­nol­o­gy.

On Tues­day, Do­minique Camp­bell will launch her Girl Ze­ro de­but al­bum, No More Hid­ing. The launch will be much more than just an en­try in­to record­ed mu­sic; it will sig­nal a tri­umph over ad­ver­si­ty and per­son­al strug­gles. The gospel pop artiste, who the leg­endary Bob Mar­ley once in­spired, is now tak­ing on the chal­lenges of the 21st cen­tu­ry in her own mu­sic.

Trinre In­sur­ance con­tin­ues to de­liv­er on its com­mit­ment to pro­mote lit­er­a­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly among young stu­dents across T&T.

On June 8, DA­DA & Projects of­fi­cial­ly hand­ed over a tree­house to the Aripo com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Aripo Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ed by adding fi­nal dec­o­ra­tive touch­es be­fore the of­fi­cial han­dover.

Louis and the Lynx, led by Dr Louis Nurse, has been part of T&T’s en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try since 1975. To mark their gold­en mile­stone this year, the band will present Time­less, an im­mer­sive con­cert of jazz, so­ca, youth and love at the Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um to­mor­row at 8 pm.

“It is not the healthy who need a doc­tor, but the sick. I have not come to call the right­eous, but sin­ners.” This quote from the Bible, in the book of Mark, chap­ter 2, verse 17, is part of a larg­er con­ver­sa­tion where Je­sus de­fends his as­so­ci­a­tion with tax col­lec­tors and sin­ners, high­light­ing that he came to of­fer for­give­ness and re­demp­tion to those who recog­nise their need for it.

The Lynette Ram­per­sad Give A Lit­tle, Help A Lot Foun­da­tion (LRF) wants to ex­pand its reach by for­mal­is­ing its pro­grammes and deep­en­ing its ad­vo­ca­cy in the ar­eas of can­cer care and ed­u­ca­tion­al ac­cess.

M ul­ti-tal­ent­ed, award-win­ning steel­band arranger Am­rit Sama­roo was guest artiste and com­pos­er in res­i­dence for the Per­cus­sive Arts So­ci­ety South Car­oli­na Fes­ti­val of Steel in April. The fes­ti­val was pro­duced and host­ed by Dr Jesse Willis and Coastal Car­oli­na Uni­ver­si­ty (CCU).