Dr Tonya Abra­ham is set­ting her­self a tall task—to ac­tive­ly tack­le men­tal health in young peo­ple.

It was sup­posed to be rou­tine. A Pap smear, a sim­ple health screen­ing that Kim­ber­ly Moone­sar had no rea­son to be­lieve would change the course of her life.

The use of the “home name” has been a nor­mal part of every­day life for Trin­bag­o­ni­ans for decades. Most of us are prob­a­bly more close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with our home names, of­ten link­ing our “gov­ern­ment name” to se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tions or “get­ting in trou­ble”. But did you know that the home name was steeped in West African prac­tice and be­lief? Our African an­ces­tors be­lieved that a per­son’s true name holds deep spir­i­tu­al pow­er and con­nects di­rect­ly to their soul, so a “fake iden­ti­ty” was a way to pro­tect chil­dren from the evil eye, neg­a­tiv­i­ty, jumbies and for­est spir­its.

As the year draws to a close, I find my­self think­ing about how I want to feel when the new one be­gins. Rest­ed. Ground­ed. Clear about where I am head­ing.

Shar­lan Bai­ley’s re­sem­blance to his fa­ther, Win­ston Bai­ley, is so strik­ing that peo­ple of­ten do a dou­ble take when­ev­er he takes the stage. As Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month comes to a close, the late Mighty Shad­ow re­turns to the spot­light through the eyes and mem­o­ry of his son.

Thou­sands of young women in Trinidad and To­ba­go face the month­ly chal­lenge of pe­ri­od pover­ty, with a lack of ac­cess to es­sen­tial men­stru­al care prod­ucts po­ten­tial­ly af­fect­ing their ed­u­ca­tion, con­fi­dence and dig­ni­ty.

Janay Bernard, Miss Barataria, was crowned Lit­tle Miss Pleas­antville Queen 2026 at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 17, fol­low­ing an evening show­cas­ing tal­ent, con­fi­dence, poise and el­e­gance.

Imag­ine tak­ing time off work, wait­ing in a long line, and pay­ing for your ve­hi­cle’s manda­to­ry bi-an­nu­al ve­hi­cle in­spec­tion, on­ly to be flat­ly turned away be­fore the in­spec­tor even looks at your brakes. It is a high­ly frus­trat­ing re­al­i­ty for many dri­vers in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and it usu­al­ly comes down to a sin­gle, tiny ty­po on their pa­per­work: con­fus­ing the num­ber “1” for the let­ter “I”, or the num­ber “0” for the let­ter “O”.

And the an­gel of the Lord ap­peared un­to him, and said, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of val­our.  And Gideon said un­to him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this be­fall­en us? And where are all his mir­a­cles which our fa­thers told us of, say­ing, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has for­sak­en us and de­liv­ered us in­to the hands of the Mid­i­an­ites.  And the Lord looked up­on him and said, ‘Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Is­rael from the hand of the Mid­i­an­ites: have not I sent thee?’  And he said un­to him, Oh my Lord, where­with shall I save Is­rael? Be­hold, my fam­i­ly is poor in Man­asseh, and I am the least in my fa­ther’s house.” (Judges 6:12 to 15).

For 55 years, Pan Trin­ba­go has stood at the heart of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s steel­band move­ment, help­ing to pre­serve, pro­mote and ad­vance the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. As the or­gan­i­sa­tion cel­e­brates its 55th an­niver­sary in 2026, it is re­flect­ing on a lega­cy built on re­silience, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and the work of those who laid the foun­da­tions for gen­er­a­tions to come.

The Make It Hap­pen Net­work (MIH) host­ed Be­com­ing 3 on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 17, at the NA­PA Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain.

The abil­i­ty to cre­ate beau­ti­ful art­work man­i­fest­ed it­self in her ear­ly child­hood and has fol­lowed her around ever since. The art ed­u­ca­tor and vi­su­al artist told We Art, “It’s al­most as though I just couldn’t get away from it. I loved art as a child,” a love she be­lieves she in­her­it­ed from her grand­moth­er, ce­ram­ic and vi­su­al artist Bar­bara Fe­lice.