While Earth Day 2023 was cel­e­brat­ed on April 22, Sco­tia­bank em­ploy­ees start­ed off cel­e­bra­tions by lead­ing a com­mu­ni­ty seedling dis­tri­b­u­tion dri­ve in Low­lands, To­ba­go, with part­ner—the SURE Foun­da­tion.

“Zoomies” have been a part of the lives of dog own­ers far longer than Zoom meet­ings! The ex­act ori­gin of the term is un­cer­tain, but the first part of the word is like­ly a straight­for­ward use of the verb “zoom” which means to move or trav­el very quick­ly. Zoomies be­came a slang term used by pet own­ers to de­scribe sud­den, short-lived spurts of ac­tiv­i­ty by their dogs.

De­ter­mined to es­cape the shack­les of pover­ty and the en­vi­ron­ment of crime, Shi­han Han­i­fah Mar­va John-Lo­gan used her strug­gles to de­vel­op a for­mu­la to suc­ceed, and it is this same for­mu­la she is us­ing to carve a path­way for those in the com­mu­ni­ty to seek that el­e­va­tion as well.

The Na­tion­al Mus­lim Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NM­WOTT) pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive is to fos­ter sis­ter­hood and pro­mote the ad­vance­ment of women in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In­cor­po­rat­ed over twen­ty years un­der the vi­sion­ary Fer­oza (Rose) Mo­hammed, to sup­port each oth­er and ed­u­cate all per­sons and their com­mu­ni­ties spir­i­tu­al­ly, so­cial­ly, and cul­tur­al­ly. With­in the sis­ter­hood, the val­ues of gra­cious­ness are up­held, and needs are at­tend­ed to com­pas­sion­ate­ly, in both good times and times of tri­al. This or­gan­i­sa­tion was formed not to change any­one’s be­lief but in­stead, to cre­ate an at­mos­phere of friend­ship, peace, love, and har­mo­ny.‘As we move fur­ther in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry, we wish to main­tain a vi­brant and dy­nam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion with a close-knit Is­lam­ic sis­ter­hood. As Mus­lim women, we must take po­si­tions at the fore­front, as con­trib­u­tors to our so­ci­ety in every way. May God bless this or­gan­i­sa­tion, move us from strength to strength and keep us sol­id as a rock with uni­ty and har­mo­ny,” shared by the en­tire NM­WOTT ex­ec­u­tive. 

If there was ever a par­ent that need­ed a vil­lage around them, it is the par­ent of a spe­cial-needs child. As com­pared to the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, the so­cial sup­port and pub­lic health sys­tems in place for par­ents of autis­tic chil­dren in Trinidad and To­ba­go is se­vere­ly un­der par. The par­ent is usu­al­ly made to be the sole sup­port and care­giv­er of the child. This can take a huge toll in terms of the men­tal and emo­tion­al load.

Eid Mubarack to all of Trinidad and To­ba­go and more par­tic­u­lar­ly my fam­i­ly and friends who are cel­e­brat­ing Eid-ul-Fitr af­ter ob­serv­ing the holy month of Ra­madan.

“In­tim­i­da­tion be­came Pa­pa’s way of as­sert­ing his pow­er over us. Ma­ma built up an un­re­lent­ing en­durance for pain, sym­bol­ised by the scar on her fore­head. She nev­er shared her suf­fer­ing with any­one, and nev­er com­plained. Open dis­cus­sion about do­mes­tic abuse and the in­fra­struc­ture to help bat­tered women didn’t ex­ist then. Even if it did, Ma­ma wouldn’t have tak­en it. She wasn’t go­ing to live amongst strangers and leave her home. Up to the time of her death, Ma­ma didn’t have or vis­it friends. She com­mit­ted her life to her fam­i­ly.”

April is c-sec­tion aware­ness month. A ce­sare­an de­liv­ery or c-sec­tion is the de­liv­ery of a ba­by through sur­gi­cal in­ci­sions made in the ab­domen and uterus. We as ob­ste­tri­cians must recog­nise that our pa­tients are hu­man too and will have fears and we must un­der­stand and en­counter this by ed­u­cat­ing all in­volved par­ties on what are the in­di­ca­tions for c-sec­tions–elec­tive vs emer­gency–and re­as­sure our pa­tients that vagi­nal de­liv­ery is al­ways a first choice un­less oth­er­wise in­di­cat­ed.

They say mer­maids swam in a pool in Matu­ra, and hunters caught a glimpse many years ago. They now call it Mer­maid Pool. Whether or not it is true, it cer­tain­ly looks en­chant­i­ng enough for myth­i­cal be­ings to in­hab­it there.

At the in­ter­sec­tion of fash­ion, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and pas­sion lies the un­fold­ing of Shiv­onne Subero’s dreams. From a hum­ble back­ground, born in Trinidad, and raised in Venezuela as a child, Subero shares, “The things I am achiev­ing now I nev­er thought I was ca­pa­ble of ac­com­plish­ing, but if you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hands.”   

Hear­ing the strum of a cu­a­tro or the pluck of a man­dolin string or the shake of a pair of mara­cas in the sec­ond quar­ter of the year may sound quite un­usu­al to a Tri­ni ear. Grant­ed, on the parang cal­en­dar, the sea­son ends in Jan­u­ary, on the Feast of the Epiphany, to be ex­act.

Bo­cas Lit Fest, ‘the biggest an­nu­al lit­er­ary fes­ti­val in the An­glo­phone Caribbean,’ is al­most up­on us (April 28-30 at NALIS in Port-of-Spain) with the mis­sion of sup­port­ing, pro­mot­ing, de­vel­op­ing, and bring­ing to­geth­er writ­ers and read­ers of all ages.’