On Tues­day, the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty in T&T—and around the world—be­gan ob­serv­ing the ten-day fes­ti­val of Ganesh Ut­sav, ho­n­our­ing the birth of Lord Ganesh, revered as the re­mover of ob­sta­cles and pa­tron of new be­gin­nings.

They num­ber near­ly half a bil­lion across 90 coun­tries, yet In­dige­nous Peo­ples re­main among the most mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties in the world. The Unit­ed Na­tions es­ti­mates that while they make up less than six per cent of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion, they ac­count for 15 per cent of its poor­est. Still, their re­silience is wo­ven in­to the fab­ric of hu­man­i­ty: they speak the vast ma­jor­i­ty of the world’s 7,000 lan­guages and em­body some 5,000 dis­tinct cul­tures.

Gabrielle Le Gen­dre is on a mis­sion to de­liv­er un­for­get­table au­di­ence ex­pe­ri­ences while cre­at­ing plat­forms for emerg­ing Caribbean tal­ent. In an in­dus­try where the spot­light of­ten stays fixed on per­form­ers, the founder of LG Stage Man­age­ment has built her rep­u­ta­tion com­mand­ing every­thing be­hind the cur­tain.

The SK Dance Acad­e­my lit up the Bis­ram Gopie Au­di­to­ri­um at NCIC Na­gar, Ch­agua­nans, re­cent­ly, with a vi­brant cel­e­bra­tion of move­ment, mu­sic, and mul­ti­cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion.

On Sat­ur­day evening, amid soft lights and warm con­ver­sa­tion, a crowd of clients, de­sign­ers, and well-wish­ers gath­ered at 21 Stone Street, Port-of-Spain. The oc­ca­sion was more than the open­ing of a new re­tail show­room. For lead de­sign­er and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Vani Ma­haraj, it was the cul­mi­na­tion of a child­hood dream.

In May, Aval­on Gill took a bold step to­wards ad­vanc­ing women’s rights in T&T. She reg­is­tered Her Lega­cy, Her Foun­da­tion, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, ded­i­cat­ed to ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies, gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives and pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor pro­grammes to meet the spe­cif­ic needs of women across the coun­try.

Re­bec­ca Bap­tiste is not your typ­i­cal mod­el. While many in the fash­ion world speak about the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment, Bap­tiste has gone a step fur­ther—wear­ing the crown of Miss En­vi­ron­ment T&T 2025, the very first ti­tle­hold­er in the coun­try.

On the night of In­de­pen­dence in 1962, when the Union Jack was low­ered and the red, white and black flag was hoist­ed for the first time, 16-year-old Mavis John left her home in Mor­vant and made her way to Wood­ford Square. She want­ed to be there, in the crowd, for his­to­ry.

The lega­cy of Dai Ail­ian—the T&T-born dancer who be­came a tow­er­ing fig­ure in Chi­nese cul­ture and is revered as the “Moth­er of Chi­nese Mod­ern Dance”—con­tin­ues to in­spire new gen­er­a­tions across the globe. Last Wednes­day evening, that lega­cy was ho­n­oured in Port-of-Spain as the Chi­nese Em­bassy and the Dai Ail­ian Foun­da­tion launched the Chi­nese Dance Mas­ter Class Se­ries: Wu Dao—An Eth­nic In­no­va­tion, an ini­tia­tive de­signed to show­case the beau­ty and di­ver­si­ty of Chi­nese folk and eth­nic dance.

With the can­cel­la­tion of this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade and fire­works dis­play, Cae­sar’s Army (CA) is fine-tun­ing plans for the na­tion’s sec­ond-biggest In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tion—its sig­na­ture event, In De Paint Dance (ID­PD).

On a nar­row street in Diego Mar­tin, a lit­tle girl once told every­one that the road was named af­ter her. “Sa­landy Street—that’s mine,” she’d say with a grin, con­vinced it was proof she was meant for great­ness.

“Each of us has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to use our skills, not on­ly to help those around us, those we know—but to pro­vide for women you don’t know.”