“The mo­ment be­tween ‘and the Gram­my goes to’ and hear­ing the name of your team is lit­er­al­ly breath­tak­ing. My heart skipped two beats, at least. And then when I heard ‘In­tel­li­gence’, there was this rush of adren­a­line. The first feel­ing is dis­be­lief and then in­cred­i­ble ex­cite­ment, ela­tion,” re­called 56-year-old Trinida­di­an-Cana­di­an mu­sic con­duc­tor Kwamé Ryan.

For Mar­sha Joseph, a 52-year-old teacher at Tacarigua Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, can­cer was nev­er out of her or­bit, as she had fam­i­ly and friends af­fect­ed by the ill­ness and close­ly fol­lowed the work of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety. How­ev­er, in 2024, it loomed large in her life. As she was on the brink of a new sea­son, in the year that she was turn­ing 50, she and her hus­band were cel­e­brat­ing their 25th wed­ding an­niver­sary, and her chil­dren were grow­ing in­to young adults, she nev­er imag­ined that she would al­so be nav­i­gat­ing a breast can­cer jour­ney.

World Can­cer Aware­ness Day, ob­served an­nu­al­ly on Feb­ru­ary 4, seeks to raise aware­ness about can­cer and en­cour­age its pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion, and treat­ment. On this year’s World Can­cer Day, themed “Unit­ed by Unique” we are called to re­mem­ber our col­lec­tive com­mit­ment against can­cer, and the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion ac­knowl­edges every pa­tient’s unique ex­pe­ri­ences and the val­ue of peo­ple-cen­tered care de­liv­ered joint­ly by health­care providers, fam­i­lies, friends and com­mu­ni­ty.

Looks can be de­ceiv­ing. You might ap­pear healthy, ca­pa­ble and in con­trol, yet heart dis­ease can de­vel­op qui­et­ly. Many women jug­gle ca­reers, fam­i­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and the men­tal load of keep­ing life on track. Over time, this con­stant pres­sure drains en­er­gy and places the heart un­der strain.

As a gy­nae­col­o­gist, I have the priv­i­lege of car­ing for women through every stage of life—from ado­les­cence and moth­er­hood to menopause and be­yond. As this coun­try ob­served World Can­cer Day on Feb­ru­ary 4, I want­ed to share an im­por­tant mes­sage: many can­cers af­fect­ing women can be pre­vent­ed, de­tect­ed ear­ly, or treat­ed suc­cess­ful­ly if we act in a time­ly man­ner.

Car­ing for some­one with can­cer takes an enor­mous amount of pa­tience and com­pas­sion, traits that phle­botomist Eliz­a­beth Atwell has learned to mas­ter over her 29 years of work­ing in the med­ical field.

Breast can­cer is one of the most com­mon can­cers among women. This can dras­ti­cal­ly re­duce the qual­i­ty of life for many di­ag­nosed with this health is­sue. Our bod­ies are made up of nu­tri­ents that we ob­tain from the food we eat. This is why nu­tri­tion is so im­pact­ful when it comes to the health of your body.

Two years ago, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies stu­dent Chloe Ram­nar­ine learned her can­cer had re­turned. What could have been a mo­ment de­fined by fear in­stead be­came the start of a jour­ney that would open new path­ways for can­cer treat­ment for pa­tients across the re­gion.

Bo­cas Lit Fest sup­port­ed The Shel­ter-A Safe House for Sur­vivors of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence through its year-end Books that Build Hope do­na­tion dri­ve, in part­ner­ship with Pa­per Based Book­shop.

Trinida­di­an po­et Gilberte Jas­mine Farah (O’Sul­li­van) (1971–2026) went in­to a co­ma on Jan­u­ary 11 and died in Brighton, UK on the 25 from a mas­sive stroke hours be­fore Sea Blast, her de­but col­lec­tion, was pub­lished.

One year ago, Kristo­pher Mo­hamed’s life changed in a way no teenag­er ex­pects. The for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent, on the cusp of med­ical school and adult­hood, was di­ag­nosed with Stage IV Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, a di­ag­no­sis that forced him to con­front the fear of mor­tal­i­ty far ear­li­er than most of his peers.

Af­ter dom­i­nat­ing Spice­mas in 2025, sev­er­al Grena­di­an so­ca hits are tak­ing over Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions. So it’s no sur­prise the artistes flew over to give au­di­ences a di­rect taste of their coun­try’s Jab en­er­gy.