Just back from New York in the post fash­ion week fren­zy, I was lost in a maze of fash­ion choic­es all tout­ing spring/sum­mer 2020. It was a wash of colour, all with eth­nic per­sua­sions and lus­trous feels. Even above and be­yond that, as fall set in, I wit­nessed the mag­ic of na­ture and the chang­ing hues of the fo­liage. Au­tum­nal re­galia was quite fas­ci­nat­ing to me and I chan­nelled my thoughts to the pow­er of colour and how it in­flu­ences our soul, our style and our lives. As Wilde pro­claimed, “mere colour can speak to the soul in a thou­sand dif­fer­ent ways.”

Dis­cov­er how to be­come a more lov­ing part­ner by plan­ning these spe­cial sur­pris­es that will cer­tain­ly up­grade your re­la­tion­ship in more ways than one.

Born with an acute sense of flair and style, Dar­cel Brad­shaw op­er­at­ed out of her bed­room for about five years be­fore es­tab­lish­ing Dar­cel’s House of Hair in 2017. A beau­ty sa­lon lo­cat­ed in the San Juan area, Dar­cel’s House of Hair has grown to be­come one of the top-notch sa­lons in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Dar­cel’s clien­tele in­cludes lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al A-list celebri­ties.

De­ter­mined to in­flu­ence the fields of re­search bi­ol­o­gy and en­vi­ron­men­tal bi­ol­o­gy with her unique fu­sion of en­thu­si­asm and cre­ativ­i­ty, Alex­is Mar­i­anes is known for her work in an­i­mal wel­fare. She has stud­ied ecosys­tems and tak­en class­es in Eu­rope, South Amer­i­ca, South­east Asia, and the USA. She con­tin­ues to ex­pand her in­ter­na­tion­al knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence-base to im­prove en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness.

Ker­ry Des Vi­gnes is a wife, moth­er of two chil­dren (Zaria age 11 and Ethan-Zade, age sev­en) and she is the first of four sib­lings. Ker­ry is known to be a dri­ven woman with strong work eth­ic. As co-own­er of a 10-year-old busi­ness, Ker­ry’s Nice and Sweet Treats, she is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing ex­cel­lence in the ser­vice sec­tor while show­cas­ing the mul­ti­cul­tur­al cui­sine of Trinidad and To­ba­go to a grow­ing num­ber of in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors and lo­cal clients. Ker­ry’s Nice and Sweet Treats is a full ser­vice event cater­ing com­pa­ny in To­ba­go, which Ker­ry runs with her hus­band Nigel.

Pan­cre­at­ic can­cer has the high­est mor­tal­i­ty rate of all can­cers be­cause it shows no signs or symp­toms un­til it reach­es stage four. Na­tal­ie Sab­ga, whose hus­band, John, passed away from the dis­ease on Jan­u­ary 26, 2017, start­ed the John E Sab­ga Foun­da­tion (JESF) for Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer. When asked why she con­tin­ues to fight for the cause, Mrs. Sab­ga had a lot to share with the WE mag team. De­ter­mined to find a cure for this chron­ic dis­ease, Na­tal­ie opens up about her hus­band’s bat­tle and why she is com­mit­ted to the cause. This is what she had to share with us:

Ghee is clar­i­fied but­ter made ON­LY from cow’s milk, no added in­gre­di­ents. Ghee is full of omega-3 fat­ty acids, which are good fats and are es­sen­tial for im­prov­ing brain and heart health as well as im­mu­ni­ty.

I would start this ar­ti­cle with a quote I am cer­tain you won’t see any­where else: “Your job is not your pri­or­i­ty, it’s your well be­ing, your health is your pri­or­i­ty and that in­cludes your de­vo­tion to whom or what­ev­er your con­cept of God is.” Many of us live our lives to please the ex­ter­nal forces, i.e. we seem to take bet­ter care of the ma­te­ri­al­is­tic things in our pos­ses­sion and ne­glect our health un­til it is way too late. Some of us lit­er­al­ly are at the point of de­te­ri­o­ra­tion be­fore we do some­thing about our health.

Over the com­ing weeks, teenagers and their par­ents will rapid­ly adapt to the whirl­wind of sched­ules, dead­lines and for some, up­com­ing ma­jor ex­am­i­na­tions. The be­gin­ning of every school term is a time of goal-set­ting and plan­ning. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, teenagers with or­gan­i­sa­tion­al chal­lenges of­ten have a tough time mak­ing re­al­is­tic goals and more so, be­ing able to stick to them. Thank­ful­ly, there are sev­er­al so­lu­tions and tools that can be used to help keep school, ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar and home lives or­gan­ised.

There is no one-size-fits-all rem­e­dy to avoid­ing burnout, it all de­pends on the per­son. Be­ing a health­care pro­fes­sion­al usu­al­ly means that you give your heart and soul to your job and the peo­ple you en­counter along the way.

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.

“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.