A shared vi­sion first sparked on an in­ter­na­tion­al stage came to life be­fore a lo­cal au­di­ence when Cari­Carib Dance and Danse4Nia/Phoenix Danse pre­sent­ed Col­lab­o­ra­tion at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, on April 26.

At 21, Kar­lene Joseph left Trinidad for New York City to live with her fa­ther. She nev­er had a close re­la­tion­ship with her dad, and this was meant to be their time to bond. He died ten days be­fore she ar­rived. With no time to process her emo­tions, she went straight in­to sur­vival mode.

Lisa At­wa­ter has been through the med­ical and emo­tion­al wringer, hav­ing had two ma­jor surg­eries in less than six months on her spine and brain. And al­though the dis­com­fort and changes in her lifestyle re­main un­wel­come vis­i­tors, there is one con­stant on which she can al­ways re­ly – the sup­port of her com­mu­ni­ty in Moru­ga.

From a child­hood filled with crick­et, foot­ball, and end­less days out­doors in Fyz­abad, Shel­don Stephen’s jour­ney in­to en­tre­pre­neur­ship and event pro­duc­tion was nev­er part of a rigid plan; it was some­thing that un­fold­ed nat­u­ral­ly, shaped by en­vi­ron­ment, in­stinct, and an ear­ly dri­ve to suc­ceed.

To­day at the Old Fire Sta­tion in Port-of-Spain, Mar­garet Bus­by, the Ghana­ian-born pub­lish­er, ed­i­tor and writer who has been a cen­tral fig­ure in Black British lit­er­ary life for half a cen­tu­ry, ap­pears in con­ver­sa­tion with Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown, founder and pres­i­dent of the Bo­cas Lit Fest, on Bus­by’s new col­lec­tion, Part of the Sto­ry.

In­fer­til­i­ty in women can be de­fined as the in­abil­i­ty to achieve preg­nan­cy af­ter 12 months of try­ing with a male part­ner. It can al­so re­fer to the in­abil­i­ty to car­ry a preg­nan­cy to term. Fe­male in­fer­til­i­ty may re­sult from many fac­tors, such as blocked fal­lop­i­an tubes, hor­mon­al im­bal­ances, age-re­lat­ed de­cline in egg qual­i­ty, or health con­di­tions. Lifestyle fac­tors are im­por­tant in in­flu­enc­ing re­pro­duc­tive health.

Each May, health­care pro­fes­sion­als around the world ob­serve Preeclamp­sia Aware­ness Month, a cam­paign led by or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Preeclamp­sia Foun­da­tion. Es­tab­lished in the ear­ly 2000s, this ini­tia­tive was cre­at­ed to im­prove aware­ness, pro­mote ear­ly de­tec­tion, and re­duce the se­ri­ous com­pli­ca­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with this con­di­tion. The cam­paign is of­ten rep­re­sent­ed by navy and hot pink colours and a pur­ple and blue rib­bon, sym­bol­is­ing strength, ur­gency, and ma­ter­nal health ad­vo­ca­cy.

She has been named one of the Queen Eliz­a­beth II Com­mon­wealth Trust 100 Young Lead­ers Awardees for 2026. This award recog­nis­es 100 young change­mak­ers across the Com­mon­wealth and was launched to mark what would have been Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s 100th birth­day. For Maya, this is an­oth­er ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion in a jour­ney that has al­ready in­clud­ed the 2020 Di­ana Award and be­ing named Com­mon­wealth Young Per­son of the Year 2023.

So­cial his­to­ri­an, fem­i­nist schol­ar and Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Gen­der, So­cial Change and De­vel­op­ment at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Rho­da Red­dock, has spent a life­time in­ter­ro­gat­ing the struc­tures that shape Caribbean so­ci­ety. Fram­ing is­sues sur­round­ing pow­er struc­tures caused by race/eth­nic­i­ty, gen­der and class has been a cen­tral fo­cal point of her life’s work, and in this ex­plo­ration, she has be­come one of the re­gion’s most for­mi­da­ble in­tel­lec­tu­al voic­es. From her base in the up­per ech­e­lons of acad­e­mia at the UWI, St Au­gus­tine and through her in­volve­ment in glob­al and lo­cal ac­tivism, she has al­so con­sis­tent­ly chal­lenged the mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion of Caribbean thought with­in glob­al acad­e­mia, in­sist­ing that the re­gion is not pe­riph­er­al but foun­da­tion­al to un­der­stand­ing mod­ern in­equal­i­ties.

The Reper­to­ry Dance The­atre is pay­ing trib­ute to the late broad­cast­er Ed­di­son Carr, who, un­known to many, was among a group of tal­ent­ed dancers as­sem­bled by the late As­tor John­son as he es­tab­lished the school.

Jer­el Ram­sey sought to bring a Caribbean twist to the theme of en­vi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, so he wrote and di­rect­ed Bois — a short film do­ing just that. It was re­cent­ly screened at the Film and Folk­lore Fes­ti­val, and au­di­ences couldn’t get enough of it.

No one ever wants to think about get­ting in­to a car ac­ci­dent. How­ev­er, men­tal­ly prepar­ing your­self for the pos­si­bil­i­ty is the ab­solute best way to pro­tect your­self if the un­ex­pect­ed ever hap­pens. If you find your­self in­volved in a col­li­sion, the sud­den shock and adren­a­line can make it dif­fi­cult to think clear­ly. Know­ing ex­act­ly what steps to take will keep you phys­i­cal­ly safe and make the sub­se­quent re­pair and in­sur­ance process­es in­fi­nite­ly smoother.