Women em­pow­er­ment, eman­ci­pa­tion and fem­i­nism are some of the con­cepts that have been pushed to the fore­front of the 21st cen­tu­ry. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, a cru­cial col­lat­er­al that con­tin­ues to linger in the shad­ow of these pro­gres­sive ideas is the on­go­ing but ne­glect­ed role of women as care­givers, nur­tur­ers and the an­chors of strong, bal­anced fam­i­lies.

Neisha Ram­dass is a pas­sion­ate en­er­gy an­a­lyst. A re­cent grad­u­ate of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, hav­ing com­plet­ed her Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence de­gree, with a ma­jor in En­vi­ron­men­tal and Nat­ur­al Re­source Man­age­ment and a mi­nor in En­tre­pre­neur­ship, she has de­vel­oped a keen in­ter­est for en­er­gy pol­i­cy and the is­sues sur­round­ing them. That in­ter­est led her to pur­sue a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion in Sus­tain­able En­er­gy Man­age­ment. Neisha’s de­sire to ed­u­cate the pub­lic on the en­er­gy sec­tor led her in the di­rec­tion of be­com­ing a mod­ern en­er­gy blog­ger. She has es­tab­lished and de­vel­oped a per­son­al en­er­gy blog apt­ly named eN­R­gyTT.com, through which she writes and breaks down the en­er­gy sec­tor of T&T. In spite be­ing a woman in a field that is some­times deemed “not quite woman-friend­ly”Neisha con­tin­ues to let her voice be heard and let her name be re­mem­bered.

Yia-Loren Gomez is a con­cep­tu­al artist, de­sign­er and busi­ness­woman fo­cused on var­i­ous forms of art­work and de­signs with a con­cen­tra­tion on light­ing fix­tures. While at the Caribbean School of Dance, she at­tained her RAD cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Dance UK, spe­cial­is­ing in a range of dance gen­res in­clud­ing bal­let and con­tem­po­rary.

Anas­ta­sia Jodie Be­tan­court is a 26-year-old mil­len­ni­um en­tre­pre­neur, born and raised in Mor­vant. She is a past stu­dent of Prov­i­dence Girls’ Catholic Sec­ondary School with an As­so­ciate De­gree in Food and Bev­er­age Man­age­ment from the T&T Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute (TTHTI) and an As­so­ciate De­gree in Busi­ness Man­age­ment from UWI Roytec.

When we say “Till death do us part”, I don’t think many peo­ple take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that death can hap­pen at any time, even a minute af­ter you read this sen­tence. An eter­nal good­bye can be right around the cor­ner and it is one of the most heart­break­ing ex­pe­ri­ences a per­son can go through in this life­time. Imag­ine one day be­ing mar­ried or in a re­la­tion­ship with the love of your life and the next day he or she is gone with no re­turn, leav­ing you in a world of dras­tic change, in­tense emo­tion­al tur­moil and lone­li­ness.

“Look at the time! I have no time!” Sounds fa­mil­iar? Time is re­ferred to as a man-made con­struct that has some­how found a way to con­trol every­thing we do in life, even to our detri­ment. Al­though made by us, we’ve come to a point where we now let it rule us. Let’s delve in­to the ways in which we can ben­e­fit from the val­ue we’ve since put on time in­stead of be­ing run by it.

To­day’s fash­ion mod­el must be a per­former. She must trans­form from a gazelle to a pan­ther, with the click of a fin­ger. Be it gamine or game hunter, her at­ti­tude must be on-point. Her in­stincts must be sharp. Her style must man­i­fest in an ethe­re­al gaze, by a killer-walk or through an ir­re­sistible smile, or just some­thing in the way she moves, at least so say the new “it fac­tor” find­ers.

De­spite the in­flux of hor­mone-based birth con­trol pills, in­jec­tions, im­plants and patch­es; many women in to­day’s so­ci­ety still em­brace the prac­tices of Nat­ur­al Fam­i­ly Plan­ning (NFP). Ac­cord­ing to a study con­duct­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa, one in three women use the NFP method and one in five women would use it as an op­tion if there was more ed­u­ca­tion avail­able on it.

World Heart Day is cel­e­brat­ed every year on Sep­tem­ber 29. The goal (of World Heart Day) is to in­crease ed­u­ca­tion on non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs) and re­duce glob­al mor­tal­i­ty. Re­search has shown that car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease is re­spon­si­ble for al­most half of NCD re­lat­ed deaths world­wide.

Sesame oil is a less­er-known ed­i­ble veg­etable oil de­rived from sesame seeds. It is wide­ly used for cook­ing, but can al­so be used as a flavour en­hancer. It is some­times used for mas­sage ther­a­py due to its many ben­e­fits for the skin. Stud­ies have shown that sesame oil is in fact a health­i­er form of veg­etable oil and has gained pop­u­lar­i­ty in re­cent years.

Di­a­betes, al­so termed as ‘high blood sug­ar’, is a chron­ic non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­ease that af­fects many peo­ple. There are two types of di­a­betes, Type 1 and Type 2, with the lat­ter be­ing more com­mon. Ex­er­cise and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are very im­por­tant in con­trol­ling di­a­betes. The best re­sults are usu­al­ly seen when ex­er­cise is sup­ple­ment­ed with med­ica­tion and di­etary changes.

As strange as it may seem, beau­ty rou­tines can be­stow pow­er­ful cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits on the brain that can help you to get over neg­a­tive thought pat­terns, like over analysing sit­u­a­tions, feel­ings of anx­i­ety, or gen­er­al­ly feel­ing pes­simistic. Ko­re­na Bagaan is a 21-year-old, self-taught make­up artist and con­tent cre­ator from Cou­va, who opens up about the pow­er of make­up in her jour­ney.