Activist Karen De Souza is one of the three recipients of the 2014 Laureates of the Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards forExcellence. The Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence (ANSCAFE) is the English-speaking Caribbean’s leading recognition programme in Arts, Sciences, and Public and Civic Work. De Souza is a women’s and children’s rights activist from Guyana. She is the co-founder of Red Thread, an advocacy organisation which provides service and support, education, and advocacy…
Our Sheroes
Lorna E. Welshman-Neblett has reached a pinnacle that few women of color have attained in the fragrance industry. More than 20 years ago she launched Angel, the first Thierry Mugler perfume, in the U.S. market. The fragrance has been flying off high-end shelves since. Welshman-Neblett’s career in the fragrance industry began in the late 1970s, when Elizabeth Arden established a separate fragrance company with Chloe, Burberrys and others. Welshman-Neblett started working with Thierry Mugler Parfums…
Oonya Kempadoo is an internationally published and acclaimed author, born in England in 1966 to Guyanese parents. She was brought up in Guyana and studied art in Amsterdam. Oonya has lived and worked for most of her life in various Caribbean islands including Trinidad, Tobago, St. Lucia, and is currently based in Grenada. A creative writer and novelist, she also works freelance as a researcher and consultant in the arts, private sector, with youth and…
Jill Gomez, Countess of Northesk was born in Guyana to a Hispano-Trinidadian father and British mother and was raised in Trinidad and Tobago. After studying briefly at St Joseph’s Convent (Port of Spain) in Trinidad and dominating at the islands’ biennial Music Festival, she moved to England at 13, where she studied at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She has made her career primarily in the United Kingdom….
Yaani King is an American actor of Guyanese descent. The only daughter of an NYPD officer mother, Yaani was born on August 10, 1981 in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and raised in Queens. She has two elder brothers, she spent most of her childhood around the theater, as her mother was a stage and commercial actress before becoming a police officer. As a teen, she was accepted to the High School of Performing Arts at Lincoln Center…
(By Mondale Smith) From winning the Star Guyana show many moons ago to becoming a celebrated Guyanese artiste under the DP Records Label, Lisa Mary Johanna Punch is no stranger to the local music scene. Infact she has a new song set for release on Monday and eventually an an entire album featuring 12 songs to be released incrementally under the DP Records Label. That album album will be available on over 40 online music…
JEAN SMALL is a Guyanese Jamaican living in Jamaica since 1954. She graduated from the University of the West Indies in Foreign Languages,–French, Spanish and Latin and her profession all her life has been as an educator. She has worked in Guyana, Trinidad, Nigeria, Australia and here in Jamaica as a teacher of French at both Secondary and University levels. Her love since school days has been theatre and she now considers herself first an…
Toronto-based Caterer Shaunna Marto never thought she could have a career doing what she loves. Trained in culinary arts, Shaunna founded Party’s By Shaunna in 2006; a full service catering and party business. Born in Georgetown, Guyana to a middle class family, Shaunna started cooking at the of 11; much to the horror of her parents who were concerned that she would hurt herself at the stove. They soon realize she had a talent for…
Donna Makeda is definitely a musical force to be reckoned with. She was born in Kwakwani and grew up in New Amsterdam, Berbice, Guyana. Donna started singing and performing over 25 years ago, her foundation in music came from the church, which she attended when she was a little girl. Donna started out as a dancer; she was trained in Afro-Caribbean Dance, Modern Dance, Folk Dance, Kathak and Classical Ballet. At age 16, she opened…
Three women, Janet Jagan, Jane Phillips Gay and Jessica Burnham, were the first females elected as Members of British Guiana Parliament in May 1953 after the first universal adult suffrage elections were held in the same year. Former first lady Janet Jagan became the first female Deputy Speaker of the Legislature in 1953; the first female Prime Minister in March 1997 and the first female President of Guyana in December 1997. Jane Phillips-Gay was a…