In its on­go­ing com­mit­ment to pre­serv­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al her­itage and ho­n­our­ing the lega­cy of Car­ni­val icons, Beach & As­so­ciates (BA) con­tin­ues to dis­tin­guish it­self through thought­ful­ly cu­rat­ed mas pre­sen­ta­tions and ed­u­ca­tion­al work­shops.

At just 22, Paris Coutain is carv­ing out a dis­tinc­tive space with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mu­sic in­dus­try, blend­ing per­for­mance, so­cial com­men­tary and genre-cross­ing ap­peal.

For gen­er­a­tions, the im­age of a dancer bend­ing im­pos­si­bly low be­neath a flam­ing bar has been one of T&T’s most en­dur­ing cul­tur­al sym­bols. That tra­di­tion will re­claim cen­tre stage this month with the re­launch of the Na­tion­al Lim­bo Com­pe­ti­tion, fol­low­ing an 18-year ab­sence from the na­tion­al cal­en­dar.

Through­out De­cem­ber, Dig­i­cel and the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion brought the hol­i­day spir­it to life with a com­bined $1.7 mil­lion in­vest­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go, sup­port­ing both fes­tive cel­e­bra­tions and long-term com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

In a so­ci­ety that of­ten points to na­tion­al lit­er­a­cy sta­tis­tics as a mark­er of progress, the dai­ly re­al­i­ty for many chil­dren and adults tells a more com­plex sto­ry. While Trinidad and To­ba­go boasts rel­a­tive­ly high lit­er­a­cy rates, pock­ets of the pop­u­la­tion con­tin­ue to strug­gle with ba­sic read­ing and writ­ing skills—chal­lenges that can qui­et­ly shape ed­u­ca­tion­al out­comes, em­ploy­ment prospects and long-term so­cial mo­bil­i­ty.

For many Car­ni­val lovers, the sea­son does not tru­ly be­gin un­til the first notes of so­ca echo through the hills of the North­ern Range. On Sun­day, that fa­mil­iar sig­nal came once again as So­ka in Mo­ka, the all-in­clu­sive fete held on the grounds of Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka in Mar­aval, of­fi­cial­ly launched the 2026 Car­ni­val fete sea­son.

Dri­ven by a pas­sion for pre­serv­ing To­ba­go’s culi­nary her­itage, Danielle Stew­art opened a restau­rant in Black Rock in 2019 with a busi­ness part­ner, ded­i­cat­ed to serv­ing tra­di­tion­al To­bag­on­ian dish­es.

An­daleeb Wa­jid be­gan writ­ing Learn­ing to Make Tea for One dur­ing In­dia’s sec­ond COVID-19 wave, af­ter the pan­dem­ic moved through her house­hold dur­ing the holy month of Ramzan and claimed the lives of her hus­band and moth­er-in-law. The book emerged when words failed. Grief had made speech im­pos­si­ble, and mem­o­ry felt splin­tered. The book was Wa­jid’s way of walk­ing through grief rather than be­ing frozen in it.

How my sto­ry be­gins: It all start­ed with a pap done in May (2024). Af­ter com­ing back ab­nor­mal, I had to go in for a col­poscopy (a med­ical ex­am where a health­care provider close­ly looks at the cervix (the open­ing of the uterus), and some­times the vagi­na and vul­va, us­ing a spe­cial mag­ni­fy­ing de­vice called a col­po­scope). The doc­tor as­sured me I had noth­ing to wor­ry about be­cause I was young and had no symp­toms. But I was a ner­vous wreck; look­ing back, I don’t know if it’s be­cause deep down I knew or be­cause six years pri­or I had lost a sis­ter to cer­vi­cal can­cer.

At just 30 years old, Anali Hor­rel of La Ro­maine, south Trinidad, re­ceived news that would for­ev­er change her life. In 2020, she was di­ag­nosed with Stage 1 cer­vi­cal can­cer—a di­ag­no­sis that no woman is ever pre­pared to hear, es­pe­cial­ly at such a young age.

WPC Quian­na Ma­habir has every rea­son to be grate­ful. A year ago her life hung pre­car­i­ous­ly in the bal­ance af­ter she was shot three times just out­side her Ca­roni home on the morn­ing of Oc­to­ber 22, 2024–an ex­pe­ri­ence of which she has no mem­o­ry but has the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al scars to prove it.

For An­gela Bhag­wan­deen, art is not mere­ly a pas­sion but a care­ful­ly sus­tained way of life, shaped by cre­ativ­i­ty, dis­ci­pline, and an un­wa­ver­ing con­nec­tion to na­ture.