Kid­ney dis­ease is a grow­ing, neg­a­tive, health con­cern in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Many of us are un­aware of our kid­ney health be­cause kid­ney dis­ease of­ten pro­vides no signs and symp­toms.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go ob­serves African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, vis­i­tors to the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) are be­ing in­vit­ed to re­flect on the en­dur­ing in­flu­ence of African her­itage through a spe­cial ex­hi­bi­tion that ex­plores iden­ti­ty, re­silience and cul­tur­al mem­o­ry.

Ak­i­lah’s Jew­ellery is more than fash­ion—it cel­e­brates Africa’s in­deli­ble im­pact on glob­al style while re­con­nect­ing wear­ers to Moth­er Earth and to them­selves.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day hol­i­day this week­end, the sound of ring­ing bells, the pow­er­ful rhythm of drums and the soul­ful voic­es ris­ing in Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist church­es across the coun­try serve as a re­minder that the jour­ney to free­dom did not end with the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. It con­tin­ued through gen­er­a­tions of strug­gle for cul­tur­al recog­ni­tion, re­li­gious ex­pres­sion and the preser­va­tion of iden­ti­ty.

In the heart of East Dry Riv­er, a re­mark­able artis­tic dy­nasty is emerg­ing. Meet the Warn­er sib­lings: Jhendiya, a ded­i­cat­ed young steel­pan mae­stro, and her younger broth­er, Rhasaan, a five-year-old prodi­gy whose stag­ger­ing achieve­ments in dra­ma, spo­ken word, and mu­sic are re­defin­ing what is pos­si­ble for a child his age.

De­sign­er Do­minique La Roche be­lieves in the Caribbean aes­thet­ic. In his most re­cent col­lec­tion, We Are The Sand Peo­ple, he shares a tile in the mo­sa­ic of In­dige­nous Peo­ples and pays home­age to African her­itage.

Of all the safe­ty fea­tures in­stalled in your ve­hi­cle, from airbags to seat­belts to re­in­forced steel frame, noth­ing is more crit­i­cal than your brak­ing sys­tem. Your brakes are the on­ly thing stand­ing be­tween you and a dis­as­trous col­li­sion. The most com­mon wear-and-tear com­po­nent of this sys­tem is the brake pad, which safe­ly clamps down on the met­al ro­tor to stop your tires from spin­ning. Know­ing the warn­ing signs of a fail­ing brake pad can quite lit­er­al­ly save your life.

Shurlan Lon­don de­scribes her­self as an en­tre­pre­neur, culi­nary pro­fes­sion­al, ed­u­ca­tor and cre­ative ser­vice provider who en­joys us­ing her skills to cre­ate so­lu­tions that make peo­ple’s lives eas­i­er and health­i­er.

As the na­tion marks 192 years since that land­mark day on Au­gust 1, 1834, the Pan­el of African Lib­er­a­tion (PAL) is stress­ing the ur­gent need to keep shin­ing a bright light on glob­al re­sis­tance against se­vere an­ces­tral in­jus­tices. Kern Solomon, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer for PAL, says Eman­ci­pa­tion Day of­fers an ide­al time for so­ci­ety to pause and ap­pre­ci­ate the im­mense pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions made by African-de­scen­dant com­mu­ni­ties both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Women of dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions gath­ered at the Oa­sis Gar­den in San Fer­nan­do on Ju­ly 11 for the in­au­gur­al Yes You Af­ter­noon Tea for Women, an event cen­tred on self-af­fir­ma­tion, fel­low­ship and cel­e­bra­tion.

African con­scious­ness took cen­tre stage on Ju­ly 24 as the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage opened in grand style at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

To­day, as Trinidad and To­ba­go marks Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, style serves as a medi­um for sto­ry­telling, cul­tur­al pride and her­itage. Glob­al­ly, African fash­ion con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence a ma­jor re­nais­sance, mak­ing its way on­to run­ways and in­to main­stream re­tail mar­kets. Rich tex­tiles, Ankara prints and ar­ti­sanal crafts­man­ship show how his­to­ry meets mod­ern lux­u­ry. Lo­cal­ly, cre­ators stand among the best when it comes to cloth­ing and jew­ellery drawn from the moth­er­land.