CIBC First­Caribbean has launched its First­Caribbean Un­sung Front­line He­roes ini­tia­tive among its 16 ter­ri­to­ries, in­clud­ing T&T. The ini­tia­tive wel­comes nom­i­na­tions from the pub­lic to sug­gest an es­sen­tial work­er or peo­ple from their com­mu­ni­ties who put ser­vice above self dur­ing the COVID-19 cri­sis. Nom­i­na­tions end to­mor­row, on Au­gust 21, and win­ners will be an­nounced in Sep­tem­ber.

You planned to a de­tail for this mir­a­cle you ex­pect to de­liv­er, you over­came the hor­rid ex­pul­sions of first trimester eme­sis (vom­it­ing) and the ba­by room is set and ready to wel­come this new joy­ous ad­di­tion in your life. Just, no one ex­pect­ed a pan­dem­ic and sud­den­ly you are swarmed with words like spikes, high-risk and ven­ti­la­tion; and re­luc­tant­ly sleep­less nights and neck pains be­come a part of your dai­ly ex­is­tence.

The Tide is here. “Here we all are,” says song­writer/vo­cal­ist Tri­cia Lee Kelshall. “Every creed and race, on the same trip, on the same ship, here we recog­nise the pow­er of both our col­lec­tive and in­di­vid­ual fragili­ty…the stuff of your best ter­ri­fy­ing sci­ence fic­tion movie or worst night­mare”

One in four chil­dren has an un­di­ag­nosed vi­sion dis­or­der ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Oph­thal­mol­o­gy (AAO). De­spite the un­set­tling sta­tis­tics, 76 per­cent have not re­ceived a com­pre­hen­sive eye ex­am at the ap­pro­pri­ate time. Re­search from AAO al­so states that “lack of ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion can have de­bil­i­tat­ing con­se­quences”. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has pre­sent­ed fur­ther chal­lenges, de­ter­ring par­ents from pur­su­ing rou­tine screen­ing and nav­i­gat­ing their chil­dren’s dig­i­tal health, as class­rooms have moved to the vir­tu­al en­vi­ron­ment.

An­oth­er Fact: Sham­ing peo­ple who refuse to wear face masks to pre­vent Coro­n­avirus spread is not go­ing to con­vince per­sons of the need for them.

Justin and An­na Camo­ra left their homes as sep­a­rate in­di­vid­u­als in the Philip­pines thou­sands of miles away in search of a bet­ter life when a lo­cal firm went scout­ing for tal­ent.

Shan­ti Ram­samooj, 54, a moth­er of four and grand­moth­er of eight from La Brea Trace, Siparia, can be seen on her daugh­ter's Face­book page bon­jay­ing a large pot of cur­ry crab on a chul­ha she made.

Er­ic Lewis–fond­ly called His Roy­al High­ness (HRH) by the late vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Louis Homer–strives to live up to his hon­orary ti­tle. Lewis is the cu­ra­tor of the two mu­se­ums in Moru­ga and is the own­er of the largest cul­ti­vat­ed plan­ta­tion es­tate in Moru­ga. His es­tate used to be 194 acres but has been re­duced to 182 acres be­cause of ero­sion. He sup­plies the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket with plan­tain, cas­sa­va, pump­kin, co­coa, pep­pers, pi­men­to, paw­paw, the fa­mous Moru­ga scor­pi­on pep­per and nu­mer­ous oth­er crops and fruits.

In the last few months, the world has turned top­sy-turvy. Sit­u­a­tions on which we de­pend­ed have changed overnight, and for some, sources of in­come have been re­duced to lev­els which are deeply con­cern­ing. The abil­i­ty to sup­port de­pen­dents fi­nan­cial­ly—and even so­cial­ly—have be­come very re­al prob­lems for many peo­ple. Here are some of the is­sues in this post-lock­down sce­nario:

Twen­ty-year-old per­son­al train­er and gym in­struc­tor Kireem Charles ex­udes ra­di­ant health. His im­pres­sive physique bal­ances func­tion­al mus­cle with sym­me­try and pro­por­tion with ten per cent body fat. The wide shoul­ders and small waist­line ac­cen­tu­ate the dis­tinc­tive v-ta­per and his mus­cu­lar fig­ure looks like it has been care­ful­ly carved.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 cri­sis in the US an­i­mal shel­ters have seen an in­crease in an­i­mal adop­tions by peo­ple seek­ing com­pan­ion­ship or who want to take care of a pet.

The beach­es are fi­nal­ly re­opened and many Tri­nis are head­ing down to Mara­cas Bay for a re­fresh­ing bath and their first bite of long-await­ed fresh­ly made bake and shark. Lykael Ahye, own­er of Ha­vana Bake and Shark (for­mer­ly known as Mona’s Bake and Shark) is ready to wel­come all hun­gry Tri­nis back for the beach’s sig­na­ture dish. Lykael’s fam­i­ly have been fry­ing up bake and shark for over 50 years along the Mara­cas shore, treat­ing beach-go­ers to de­li­cious lo­cal cui­sine. De­spite the chal­lenges of 2020 af­fect­ing many small food busi­ness­es, Lykael is mo­ti­vat­ed now more than ever to con­tin­ue her fam­i­ly lega­cy of ex­cel­lent bake and shark with Trinidad and To­ba­go. Propa Eats sat down with Lykael to hear her sto­ry, goals and aspira­tions as she push­es for­ward as a young suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neur.