Happy New Year! Rock on in 2015!

Grace Nichols is a Guyanese poet.  She was born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1950, the fifth of seven children. She was raised in the village of Highdam and attended the school where her father worked as headmaster and her mother taught piano lessons. At age eight she moved with her family to Georgetown, and at age sixteen she left high school with the hope of becoming a teacher. Earning a degree in communications at the University…

Reproduced from Face2FaceAfrica.  Germaine Djuidje Kenmoe from Cameroon and Dawn Iona Fox (extreme right) from Guyana have won the prestigious OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Awards for Early-Career Women Scientists in the Developing World. The high-profile award aims to recognize the scientific and career achievements of women from developing countries in five regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab region, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South Asia, and East and South-East Asia and the Pacific. The theme for…

“Become the leader of your life. Lead yourself to where you want to be. Breathe life back into your ambitions, your desires, your goals, your relationships.”― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

In a once unthinkable career for women, aviation in modern times has seen a multitude of females excelling in the field. One such example is US-based Guyanese (Captain) Beverley Drake, who knocked down the stereotype in her aviation career to prove that women can do a man’s job. Beverley, who grew up in Georgetown, in an interview with Guyana Times Sunday Magazine revealed that her father always wanted her to become a pilot, so he…

From floor sweeping gowns in black and gold, to white frocks and bridal wear, models sashayed down a long flight of stairs to display a floral patchwork attire by Guyanese Melissa Payne, swimwear embellished matched with costume head-pieces by Marlon Smart, in addition to Mariska’s popular Resort Collection, that continues to take the world by storm. Caribbean flair and fashion

Ms. Valerie Rodway (1919-1970) was a teacher and Guyanese composer.  She is best known for her national songs, which include, “O Beautiful Guyana,” “Kanaïma,” “Hymn for Guyana’s Children,” “Arise, Guyana,” and “Guyana the Free.  She also put to music the famed Guyanese independence poem by Martin Carter, “Let Freedom Awaken.” Ms. Rodway was a member of one of those families whose contributions to Guyana are still evident. Her father, Newton Berthier Fraser was born in…

SHE was recently elected the first woman president of the Guyana Press Association (GPA), shattering the glass ceiling that existed for seven decades. Although excited for her new role, Nazima Raghubir is ready to hit the ground running with plans to have the GPA offer more training for its journalists. “There is a high turnover of media workers, journalists in Guyana. A lot of us aren’t trained and we don’t have a journalism programme at…

When she entered her guidance counselor’s office earlier this year, it was not a big revelation. Bibi Sulaman, a senior at Jamaica Gateway to the Sciences High School, had met with her counselor to verify her credits and classes before graduating this June. Casually, her counselor revealed that she was valedictorian of her class of around 150 students. “It wasn’t a surprise,” said Bibi. “[Being valedictorian] wasn’t my goal. I just tried to do my…

She’s Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn In She’s Mad Real, Oneka LaBennett draws on over a decade of researching teenage West Indian girls in the Flatbush and Crown Heights sections of Brooklyn to argue that Black youth are in fact strategic consumers of popular culture and through this consumption they assert far more agency in defining race, ethnicity, and gender than academic and popular discourses tend to acknowledge. Importantly, LaBennett…

You can be happy if you choose to be thankful.  Even if your life is not perfect, there are lots of reasons to feel good about something.

The courage and passion that singer, Lisa Punch, showed during her appearance on the “Rising Star” TV Show inspired me to share this quote.  In just 6-months of living in a foreign country, she fearlessly took to the international stage and showed her fans and the world that nothing is impossible. Always remember that “If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone…

In the process of letting go for this new year you will lose many things from the past, but it will help you to find yourself.

It’s said that true charity begin at home and Keshia Adams is determined not to keep it there.  The Brooklyn-Based Executive Director/Founder of Lifting You For Tomorrow’s Success (L.Y.F.T.S) is on a mission to break the cycle of poverty for families in her community and in Guyana.  L.Y.F.T.S. is a  non-profit organization that tackles many social problems like poverty, at-risk youth, and hunger. Another passion of Keshia is the The Adams Project (T.A.P.); a subsection of L.Y.F.T. that…

This past Monday, on May 26th, Guyana celebrated it’s 49th independence anniversary, which coincided with the Inauguration of Guyana’s 8th Executive President His Excellency David Arthur Granger at the Guyana National Stadium.  While a proud moment for Guyanese living at home and abroad, it was this image of Stacey Codogan performing a sword salute and depicting such strength and beauty that stole the hearts and admiration of many across social media.   She Rocks!     Photographer: Brian Gomes.

Navigators Travel to Guyana gives a taste of what Guyana has to offer to its readers, and it is the follow up to Navigators Travel to Barbados written by Howard Liverpool. This time our intrepid explorers travel to Guyana and learn about the history and geography of the country. They also sample some of the local cuisine and have a scary encounter with a ram sheep. It’s a children’s book geared to kids from ages…