When 26-year-old Lor­raine Rag­bir vis­it­ed the doc­tor for high blood pres­sure, kid­ney fail­ure was the last di­ag­no­sis she ex­pect­ed.

Xtra Foods brought to­geth­er women from across com­mu­ni­ties for a cel­e­bra­tion of em­pow­er­ment, re­silience and the trans­for­ma­tive im­pact of women in so­ci­ety dur­ing a spe­cial event in com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day at its South Park, San Fer­nan­do lo­ca­tion last Fri­day.

The In­ter­Club of Trinidad and To­ba­go host­ed its 24th An­nu­al Tea in cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, unit­ing sev­er­al Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Or­gan­i­sa­tions for an af­ter­noon of fel­low­ship and fes­tiv­i­ty on Sun­day at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel.

Re­tired teacher, moth­er, grand­moth­er and cul­tur­al am­bas­sador Au­drey Ram­sey (née Duke) peace­ful­ly passed away on Feb­ru­ary 16.

“My pro­fes­sion­al life did not be­gin in a hos­pi­tal or clin­ic, but with con­crete, steel and cal­cu­la­tions,” re­called Trinida­di­an head and neck sur­geon Dr Mar­lon Christo­pher. “I first trained as a civ­il and en­vi­ron­men­tal en­gi­neer, com­plet­ing my de­gree at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) at the age of 21. Pre­ci­sion mat­tered. Mar­gins mat­tered.”

The Hin­du Prachar Kendra host­ed its 33rd Phag­wa Fes­ti­val on Sat­ur­day at the Kendra Grounds on Raghu­nanan Road, En­ter­prise.

The Sim­boonath Capildeo Tu­na­puna Hin­du School cel­e­brat­ed Chil­dren’s Phag­wa last Fri­day along­side oth­er Hin­du schools across the coun­try.

When­ev­er you see that phrase pop up on Rod­er­ick “Chuck” Gor­don’s Face­book page, pull up a chair; you know that class is in ses­sion. The two-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch might have missed the cut for the 2026 Di­manche Gras fi­nals last month, but he has now fo­cused his at­ten­tion on an on­line stage where the “to­ries” nev­er miss a beat.

A burst of colour, mu­sic and tra­di­tion filled the air on Sun­day as hun­dreds of res­i­dents from Fe­lic­i­ty, Char­lieville and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties gath­ered at the Pierre Road Recre­ation Ground to cel­e­brate Phag­wa, al­so known as Holi.

Ramps Lo­gis­tics has earned a 2026 Sil­ver Amer­i­can Ad­ver­tis­ing Award (AD­DY) for its Cub­by Car­go cam­paign, win­ning in the Spe­cial­ty Ad­ver­tis­ing Cam­paign cat­e­go­ry.

For Dr Sue Ann Bar­ratt, un­der­stand­ing gen­dered con­flict has al­ways be­gun with a de­cep­tive­ly sim­ple ques­tion: how do our be­liefs about gen­der shape the way we treat each oth­er? A com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al turned aca­d­e­m­ic, Bar­ratt is at present a Lec­tur­er and the Head of the In­sti­tute for Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies, The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus. As the world ob­serves In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day in 2026 un­der the theme “Give to Gain,” Bar­ratt, who has spent more than two decades ex­am­in­ing ex­pec­ta­tions around fem­i­nin­i­ty, mas­culin­i­ty, and sex­u­al­i­ty, of­fers a pow­er­ful re­minder that mean­ing­ful change be­gins with chal­leng­ing the as­sump­tions that struc­ture our re­la­tion­ships and are of­ten foun­da­tion­al el­e­ments of cul­ture.

Kee­mya Williams has been through more chal­lenges than the av­er­age teenag­er would have ex­pe­ri­enced at her age, but she re­fus­es to al­low them to de­ter her from liv­ing in the present and plan­ning for the fu­ture.