Valdeen Tama­ra Shears is a vic­tim and sur­vivor of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and a moth­er of sev­en who has spent the last five-plus years speak­ing open­ly about her ex­pe­ri­ences on the re­ceiv­ing end of gen­der-based vi­o­lence (GBV). Shears har­ness­es her 21-year jour­ney of suf­fer­ing at the hands of an abuser to sup­port, en­cour­age and arm oth­er women who des­per­ate­ly need to be heard and seen.

At work, she us­es her eyes to treat her pa­tients’ ail­ments, but at home, she pays close at­ten­tion to the de­tails of the sto­ries she paints. De­bra Bartholomew is a doc­tor, singer, teacher, and artist who goes be­yond the scope of her pro­fes­sion to help oth­ers tra­verse the men­tal ob­sta­cles of a world sat­u­rat­ed with cliques and sta­tus quo.

Venezue­lan-born clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Livia Rin­con has ded­i­cat­ed her life to lift­ing oth­ers from their dark­est per­son­al depths–trau­mas which many peo­ple can­not even imag­ine. Through­out her 36-year ca­reer, the 61-year-old has worked with sur­vivors of traf­fick­ing, rang­ing from young chil­dren to the el­der­ly. Nev­er once has she con­sid­ered leav­ing it be­hind.

“As of No­vem­ber 21, the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions showed at least 53 jour­nal­ists and me­dia work­ers were among the more than 14,000 killed since the war be­gan on Oc­to­ber 7—with over 13,000 Pales­tin­ian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Is­rael.”

Kim Kir­ton, a 38-year-old pro­fes­sion­al has been di­a­bet­ic for more years of her life than she has not. Kir­ton, a mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al, with a BA (Hons) in Me­dia & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and MA (Dist) in Ad­ver­tis­ing and Mar­ket­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds has spent the last 28 years suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ing her life, ed­u­ca­tion, ca­reer and re­la­tion­ships with Type 1 di­a­betes.

Tri­cia St John is a moth­er, au­thor, event co­or­di­na­tor, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sur­vivor. St John lost her left fore­arm and two fin­gers on her right hand to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at­tack in 2004. In 2009, St John’s ex-hus­band was found guilty by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry of at­tempt­ing to mur­der her. He was sen­tenced to 25 years and ten strokes.

Bish­op Anstey High School and Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege showed what a uni­fied ap­proach could achieve last Sun­day, af­ter they lift­ed the 2023 Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T’s Sec­ondary Schools ti­tle.

Jam­dong Man­age­ment is set to re­lease its all-fe­male Sass Rid­dim to­day, fea­tur­ing so­ca artistes Jadel, Rane Black­man and Time­ka Mar­shall.

In­ter­na­tion­al Game Tech­nol­o­gy (IGT) host­ed a Men­tor­ship Morn­ing at the Rain­bow Res­cue Home as a spe­cial event in recog­ni­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day this month.

Shenelle Sa­hadeo’s first so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion, Di­ver­si­ty: Trinidad and To­ba­go Is A Re­al Place, takes place at Arn­im’s Art Gal­le­ria, 52 Bam­boo Bay Road, La Ro­main, from No­vem­ber 29-De­cem­ber 2.

Tokyo Steel Or­ches­tra has an­nounced its tune of choice and arranger for the 2024 Na­tion­al Panora­ma Small Band com­pe­ti­tion.

T he Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion wants to en­cour­age the coun­try’s young peo­ple to get in­volved in ar­eas out­side of aca­d­e­mics through its re­cent­ly launched Cul­tur­al Trans­for­ma­tion Ini­tia­tive.