Za­kiya Naila Uzoma-Wada­da whose birth name is re­al­ly Wendy Man­ners, child of Clyde and Agnes Man­ners at­tend­ed Bel­mont Girls’ RC.School af­ter which she at­tend­ed St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of Spain for sev­en years. There, she com­plet­ed her GCE Or­di­nary Lev­el and GCE Ad­vanced Lev­el Ex­am­i­na­tions. Za­kiya as she is known to­day, changed her name by Deed Poll in 1975. when she be­gan to un­der­stand the im­por­tance of the mean­ing and en­er­gy of a name and the sig­nif­i­cance to iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of one’s eth­nic­i­ty.

Shari Cum­ber­batch is a graph­ic de­sign­er who pos­sess­es a keen pas­sion for vi­brant pat­terns and bold colours. Af­ter work­ing with var­i­ous de­sign stu­dios, ad­ver­tis­ing agen­cies and de­part­ments, Shari pur­chased a sewing ma­chine on a whim in 2014. That de­ci­sion un­leashed a hid­den wealth of de­sign pas­sion and cre­ativ­i­ty that sub­se­quent­ly gave birth to SHOP­SHARI, now one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most hip and recog­nis­able fash­ion brands. For the past three years, she has al­so de­signed a sec­tion for The Lost Tribe, win­ner of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val’s Band of the Year (large) prize in 2019.

Mawasi “Mo” Mar­tin is a make­up artist, moth­er of one and en­tre­pre­neur. Hav­ing taught her­self make­up artistry, it is now past a decade that she has been in­volved in the in­dus­try and proud­ly states that she is versed in all styles of make­up from en­hance­ment make­up to cre­ative/avante garde styles. Not on­ly does Mo love do­ing make­up but she is pas­sion­ate about shar­ing the love of her craft through teach­ing make­up at work­shops and class­es at her Ari­ma based stu­dio. In 2016, Mo start­ed her own in­die brand of cos­met­ics, Caribbean Queen Cos­met­ics, and in 2017 she was named the Trinidad so­cial-me­dia Am­bas­sador for Black Opal cos­met­ics. To put it sim­ply, Mo has been mak­ing waves in the lo­cal in­dus­try while help­ing women to em­brace them­selves whether it be lov­ing them­selves with make­up or by high­light­ing her per­son­al jour­ney in fit­ness, skin care and ad­vo­cat­ing for women with Poly­cys­tic Ovar­i­an Syn­drome. As we pre­pare you for the com­ing of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions, we sought to find out some more about Mo’s love for make­up and her best make­up tips to take to the streets.

It hurts to see the per­son you love delve in­to the deep dan­ger­ous depths of drug or al­co­hol abuse. Each day you may feel like you are watch­ing some­one hold a loaded gun to his or her head and with­out them even re­al­is­ing they are on a self de­struc­tive path. Sad­ness mixed with con­fu­sion, anger in­fused with frus­tra­tion over­come with love and the de­sire to fix things that may seem help­less and over­whelm­ing, may en­trap your emo­tions and thoughts. Do not lose hope or think you are alone in this plight.

The dis­tinc­tive In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum (IWF) brings to­geth­er more than 7,000 di­verse and ac­com­plished women from 33 coun­tries, in­clud­ing the Caribbean is­lands of The Ba­hamas, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos and Trinidad and To­ba­go, all ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing bet­ter lead­er­ship lo­cal­ly and glob­al­ly. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Fo­rum’s (IWFTT) core pur­pose “To unite, in­spire and cel­e­brate ac­com­plished women. To ad­vance ex­em­plary lead­er­ship, while learn­ing from and sup­port­ing each oth­er, and em­pow­er­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of women lead­ers”, is fu­elling its plans to ex­pand its ac­tiv­i­ties.

On Ju­ly 21, The Just Be­cause Foun­da­tion (JBF) host­ed their ninth an­nu­al H.O.P.E con­cert. A re­cent Face­book from the foun­da­tion de­scribes the con­cert: “Launched in 2010, the H.O.P.E Con­cert is a unique child­hood can­cer aware­ness and fundrais­ing event fea­tur­ing child­hood can­cer pa­tients of dif­fer­ent ages and at vary­ing stages of treat­ment shar­ing their tal­ents via song, dance and mu­sic. H.O.P.E is our acronym that stands for Have On­ly Pos­i­tive Ex­pec­ta­tions, which en­cap­su­lates our mis­sion of Sup­port­ing Our Fight­ers, Cel­e­brat­ing our Sur­vivors and Re­mem­ber­ing Our An­gels.”

The an­nu­al Sala­ka Feast was re-en­act­ed by the Pem­broke Folk Per­form­ers on Mon­day as part of the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val at the Pem­broke Her­itage Park.

In the months since Car­ni­val 2019, the band Dil-E-Nadan has not slowed down af­ter its hec­tic sea­son. Dil-E-Nadan has been tour­ing the Unit­ed States, Eu­rope, Guyana and Suri­name. When at home, the group has per­formed at sev­er­al events in­clud­ing lead vo­cal­ist, Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine’s own an­nu­al pro­duc­tion, “Every­bo­day Loves Ray­mond,” which saw its fi­nal run this year to a sold out au­di­ence.

Your eyes are an in­te­gral part of your health and there are many sim­ple things that can be done to keep them healthy and to en­sure that you see your best.

The Health Plus team in­ter­viewed Re­nee Sime­on re­gard­ing her jour­ney with al­ler­gies and her pop­u­lar blog ‘Off The Wheat­en Path’. Here is what she had to say:

Hand, Foot, and Mouth Dis­ease (HFMD) is a con­ta­gious ill­ness caused by dif­fer­ent virus­es, but most com­mon­ly a group of virus­es known as en­terovirus­es. It is com­mon in in­fants and chil­dren younger than five years old, be­cause they do not yet have im­mu­ni­ty to the virus­es that cause HFMD.

Ac­ne de­vel­ops when pores be­come clogged or in­fect­ed with bac­te­ria. It is a very com­mon skin con­di­tion that af­fects rough­ly 80 per cent of the world’s pop­u­la­tion. Peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence ac­ne at dif­fer­ent stages in their lives—teenage hor­mon­al ac­ne, men­stru­al cy­cle re­lat­ed ac­ne and even adult ac­ne. There are al­so many dif­fer­ent types of ac­ne (for ex­am­ple pim­ples, cys­tic and ex­treme or mild), so it may be ben­e­fi­cial to see a spe­cial­ist to de­ter­mine what type of ac­ne you have, its sever­i­ty and to get help in de­ter­min­ing the best-cus­tomised treat­ment for your skin.