The steel­band fra­ter­ni­ty is of­ten recog­nised as a male-dom­i­nant space, but at this year’s Na­tion­al Panora­ma Fes­ti­val, with the ex­cep­tion of the pri­ma­ry school cat­e­go­ry, every band that emerged in the fi­nals was cap­tained, man­aged or drilled by women. Spe­cial no­tice was giv­en to the top three in the large con­ven­tion­al cat­e­go­ry.

Ter­ri Lyons has al­ways be­lieved in her­self—even when oth­ers doubt­ed or did not share her vi­sion. The dec­o­rat­ed singer, song­writer and ac­tress cred­its her achieve­ments and con­tin­ued con­fi­dence to faith, re­silience and sac­ri­fice.

As women, we are not giv­en the cred­it we de­serve. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, women are of­ten re­gard­ed as the back­bone of the fam­i­ly. Usu­al­ly, women, whether they are moth­ers, sis­ters, cousins, or friends, are awake be­fore every­one to pre­pare meals, or­gan­ise school bags, head to work, at­tend school meet­ings, care for age­ing par­ents, and some­how clean, and help with home­work to keep every­thing run­ning smooth­ly. When are we ac­tu­al­ly tak­ing a mo­ment to care for our­selves? Our days can be busy, but if we don’t pri­ori­tise our health, we will not be able to pour from an emp­ty pot.

On Feb­ru­ary 8, when Savi­ta Singh’s name echoed across the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch stage, time seemed to stand still.

On an af­ter­noon in March at the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens in Port-of-Spain, the trees be­come a li­brary, and the coun­try gath­ers to lis­ten. Be­neath the wide samaan canopy, with palms and bam­boo stir­ring in the breeze and sun-baked leaves crack­ling un­der­foot, read­ers lift their voic­es and sto­ries drift through the gar­dens.

The ver­dict is in: all those episodes of Law & Or­der didn’t go to waste. For Danielle Thomp­son, the icon­ic chimes of the pop­u­lar court­room dra­ma were the open­ing state­ment of her life. Even as a young girl, she was al­ready locked in. She watched lawyers fight­ing for jus­tice and win­ning, and she told her­self there was noth­ing else she want­ed to do.

Astrid Mo­ril­lo Pul­chan once stood at the front of a class­room in Venezuela, se­cure in her ca­reer, her in­come and the sol­id walls of the home her fa­ther built. Then, al­most overnight, crime, cri­sis and col­lapse stripped it all away. Forced to leave be­hind com­fort and cer­tain­ty, Astrid ar­rived in Trinidad in 2015 with lit­tle more than de­ter­mi­na­tion. What she re­built in a decade was not just a life, but a mis­sion—trans­form­ing loss in­to pur­pose and find­ing with­in her­self the one thing no cri­sis could steal: the courage to rise and help oth­er women rise with her.

The Ro­tary Club of Cen­tral Port-of-Spain (RC­C­POS) un­veiled a Ro­tary Peace Pole at St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege last Wednes­day, reaf­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to peace­build­ing, youth lead­er­ship and com­mu­ni­ty uni­ty.

Trinidad and To­ba­go-born, Lon­don-based so­ca artiste, pan­nist, and ed­u­ca­tor Trini­boi Joocie had the priv­i­lege, for a sec­ond time, of tak­ing so­ca mu­sic to the world-fa­mous Bahia Car­ni­val in Sal­vador, Brazil. This op­por­tu­ni­ty arose through a cul­tur­al ex­change ini­tia­tive sup­port­ed by the British Coun­cil and Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val.

A new chap­ter has be­gun for T&T’s cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions with the for­mal launch of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Al­liance of Mu­se­ums (TTAM), an or­gan­i­sa­tion cre­at­ed to strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion, ad­vo­ca­cy and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment across the coun­try’s mu­se­um and her­itage sec­tor.

Stu­dents of St Joseph’s Con­vent San Fer­nan­do (SJCSF) lit up the stage on Feb­ru­ary 27, proud­ly dis­play­ing their tal­ents to an en­thu­si­as­tic au­di­ence of par­ents dur­ing the school’s an­nu­al Open Day cel­e­bra­tions. With con­fi­dence and joy, the young ladies trans­formed the au­di­to­ri­um in­to a vi­brant dis­play of cre­ativ­i­ty, dis­ci­pline, and pas­sion.

Fresh off a string of land­mark per­for­mances and sold-out shows, KesThe­Band has an­nounced a ma­jor ex­pan­sion of its in­ter­na­tion­al Roots, Rock, So­ca Tour, adding new dates across the Unit­ed States and Cana­da while broad­en­ing its Eu­ro­pean run to meet grow­ing de­mand from glob­al au­di­ences.