‘Gwen’ grew up in the Barima River area of the North West District in Guyana, the twentieth child in a family of 21 kids. She says she owes her toughness in the ring to long hours spent doing hard work on her parents’ farm at an early age. Her father, who was from St. Lucia, died when she was five. She had also had to fight her way through school, so as not to be taken advantage of…
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When June Haynes was a young girl in Guyana, she would spend her afternoons in her mom’s clothing store flipping through Vogue magazines that had been sent from America. Her love of style brought her to New York, where she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and majored in fashion buying and merchandising. The combination of determination and felicity landed her the Senior Vice President of Retail & Brand Ambassador position at Valentino, the luxury fashion house founded by…
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…
Christine Sukhram is the only leading lady in Guyana when it comes to golf. She is currently the reigning Guyana Women’s Open Champion. In 2004, at the age of 15, Christine recorded her second international junior title when she won the Pepsi Junior Golf Tournament in Barbados. After proving herself a winner, Christine was selected for the Soca Soft Drinks sponsorship program for talented young Guyanese. Among her most memorable victories at that tender age was the Best Ladies Competition,…
An Aircraft Maintenance Engineer is often assumed to be male. Slowly, however, the number of women is increasing, not only in the United States and the UK, but also in the Caribbean. LIAT’s first female aircraft maintenance engineer, Tesia Alexander, is leading the way for other women who want to explore this field. In 2009 Tesia became the first female aircraft engineer appointed by Liat, in its 53 years of operation. Tesia is based Antigua and credits her success…
With Christmas right around the corner, it’s a delight to bring you Guyanese-born author Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra who serves up exquisite recipes in her cookbooks “Warm Breads and Honey Cakes: Home Baking from Around the World” and “Sugar and Spice: Sweets and Treats from Around the World”, and much more. Gaitri is a food writer and historian. She currently resides in The Netherlands where she researches and writes about food and food traditions and culture. Gaitri grew up balancing…
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…
Dawnn Lewis is a popular actress and singer, perhaps best known for her roles on sitcoms such as A Different World and Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper. She was born on August 13, 1961 in Brooklyn, New York, to Guyanese parents Joyce and Carl Lewis. She attended the High School of Music & Art and graduated at age 16. After high school, Dawnn went on to the University of Miami where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. Career: Dawnn made…
In 2004 Maritza Correia McClendon made history when she became the first Black woman to earn a place on the U.S. Olympic Swim Team. She helped to secure the silver medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay at the Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Maritza was born on December 23, 1981 in San Juan, Puerto Rico to Guyanese parent, Vincent and Anne Correia. In 1988, when Maritza was seven years old, she was diagnosed with severe scoliosis which is…
As a young girl growing up in Georgetown, Guyana, Kelly-Ann Gibbs Cartwright had a talent for challenging others in conversation. “My parents always told me that I should be a lawyer because of my constant debating technique as a child,” she explains. Her family moved to the U.S. in 1978, and just a few years later when she was a junior in college, Kelly-Ann became seriously interested in following the career path her parents had envisaged. She attended the University…