For more than two cen­turies, Den­mark ruled St Thomas, St John, and St Croix—the Dan­ish West In­dies. St. Thomas came un­der Dan­ish con­trol in 1671, St. John in 1718, and St. Croix was pur­chased from France in 1733. Their economies de­pend­ed on the transat­lantic slave trade and the ex­port of sug­ar, rum, and mo­lasses, with en­slaved Africans far out­num­ber­ing Eu­ro­peans. Re­sis­tance was con­stant, in­clud­ing the 1733 St John re­volt, which was vi­o­lent­ly sup­pressed.

In a world where cli­mate change and sus­tain­abil­i­ty are of­ten buried in dense re­ports and in­ac­ces­si­ble sta­tis­tics, one T&T non-prof­it is break­ing through the noise with some­thing far more pow­er­ful: sto­ries.

Do you like air­planes? Does the idea of fly­ing ex­cite you? Or do you sim­ply mar­vel at the in­ge­nu­ity of an air­craft?

Ar­lette Wig­gins loves steel­pan so much, peo­ple say she eats, sleeps, and breathes it! Her mot­to?

So, al­low me to in­tro­duce my­self. I am Krisann Be­dassie—proud­ly the first Trin­bag­on­ian ever ad­mit­ted to the Yale Young Glob­al Schol­ars (YYGS) pro­gramme. And be­cause of the gen­eros­i­ty of my fel­low cit­i­zens and friends across bor­ders, I am al­so the first to at­tend.

Af­ter a 17-year ab­sence, Tri­ni-Cana­di­an film­mak­er, song­writer, and cre­ative vi­sion­ary Gi­no McK­oy has re­turned to T&T with a mis­sion—to help trans­form the coun­try in­to the “Hol­ly­wood of the Caribbean.”

For most of her life, Aisha Man­rique has fol­lowed what she calls “the voice of God” — a path that has led her to be­come a voice of God at ma­jor events and now one of just ten voice artists world­wide to win a pres­ti­gious schol­ar­ship from the So­ci­ety of Voice Arts and Sci­ences (SO­VAS) and Source El­e­ments. The award al­so comes with an in­vi­ta­tion to the an­nu­al Voice Arts Awards, of­ten de­scribed as the Os­cars of voice act­ing.

On Tues­day, the Kali Ya­tra Fes­ti­val re­turns to the Di­vali Na­gar — now recog­nised as one of the largest Hin­du fes­ti­vals out­side of In­dia. This week-long cel­e­bra­tion is ded­i­cat­ed to God­dess Kali, but its roots run deep.

Fifty-five years ago, then-Eng­lish Lan­guage and Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture teacher at Na­pari­ma Boys’ Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, James Lee Wah, saw more than aca­d­e­m­ic po­ten­tial in his stu­dents—many of whom were sim­ply wait­ing for the next ex­am.

Cur­ry duck com­pe­ti­tions have been a beloved tra­di­tion in T&T since the late 1990s, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cen­tral Trinidad where the dish is a culi­nary sta­ple. Blend­ing East In­di­an her­itage with the na­tion’s vi­brant com­pet­i­tive spir­it, these events draw large crowds ea­ger for a day of flavour, show­man­ship, and com­mu­ni­ty ca­ma­raderie.

The Caribbean School of Danc­ing staged its third an­nu­al As­pir­ing Chore­o­g­ra­phers show­case on Au­gust 2 at the Lit­tle Carib The­atre.

Jazz vo­cal­ist Vaugh­nette Big­ford was moved to tears dur­ing a heart­felt ren­di­tion of Mem­o­ry of Your Smile as she paid trib­ute to late cul­tur­al and mu­si­cal lu­mi­nar­ies Kay Al­leyne, Mori­cia Ca­gan, Pat­ti Rogers, Raf Robert­son, Clive Zan­da, Arthur Lewis, Mar­lon De Bique, and her grand­fa­ther. This emo­tion­al mo­ment was a high­light of her EMO­JA con­cert, held on Au­gust 2 at the Na­pari­ma Bowl.