COVER GIRL: Singer Lisa Punch on the cover of Guyana Entertainment Magazine (GEM)

Martha nee Fung Kee Fung was one of the earliest female business owners in Guyana (1800s). She became a landed proprietor who owned many businesses including a rice mill. She bought two abandoned sugar estates Waller’s Delight and Ruimzight at Windsor Forest which she rented to tenants to plant rice. Martha Street in Windsor Forrest is named for her. Sarah Lam-a-Poo born in 1870, was the grandmother of Errol “Ping” Gillette, Guyana’s first Ombudsman after…

Soyini George is the designer behind the Washington, DC, handmade baby brand, Yinibini Baby. As a little girl growing up in Guyana, Soyini’s learned to sew from watching her Great Aunt Jean cut, pin and put fabrics together to create stylish clothing.  That was just the beginning of Soyini’s love for art, design and color. One year after graduating from college, and with $100, a dining room table and tons of motivation, she started the Yinibini brand of…

Civil engineers have one of the world’s most important jobs: with creativity and technical skill, civil engineers plan, design, construct facilities essential to modern life, ranging from roads, bridges, to highway systems and are responsible for shaping our country’s infrastructure. Jean Ramkhelawan holds not only the title of Civil Engineer, but the coveted title of the first woman engineer of Indian descent in Guyana. With determination and resiliency demanded by this taxing profession Jean has…

Abigail Ulana Wade of (Abigailwadehairmakeupnails) is a New York-based Guyanese makeup artist with the hope of becoming the next celebrity hair stylist/makeup artist. This is her Photo entry to the Hello London Global Makeup Competition and your votes will definitely help her on this quest. Voting is daily (http://woobox.com/gemukx) until October. Click on the “Vote” button at the top right corner of page, locate “THIS” photo, then VOTE! Before moving to NY, Abigail was a…

  Born in Guyana in January 1923,  Patricia Gomes has purposefully dedicated more than half of her life to theatre and along the way has been quite accomplished in other areas. She has, as they say, “done it all” – from stage plays to storytelling to dancing her life away, much to the enjoyment of the audiences she thrilled.  In 2010, Ms. Gomes was named by “Special Person”  by Kaieteur News, and in an interview…

During the colonial period in Guyana, the country’s coastal lands were worked by enslaved Africans and indentured Indians. In Creole Indigeneity, Shona N. Jackson investigates how their descendants, collectively called Creoles, have remade themselves as Guyana’s new natives, displacing indigenous peoples in the Caribbean through an extension of colonial attitudes and policies. Looking particularly at the nation’s politically fraught decades from the 1950s to the present, Jackson explores aboriginal and Creole identities in Guyanese society….

This past weekend the people of Guyana felt a sense of pride as Rafieya Aasieya Husain became the first Guyanese in over 40 years to place at the Miss World Pageant. The 22-year-old beauty queen, who is a native of Essequibo County, was one of the top 10 Finalists named at the Miss World competition finale held on Sunday at the Excel London ICC Auditorium. Rafieya also won the ‘Beauty With a Purpose Title’, which…

Amy Elizabeth Imrie (4 Oct 1870 – 4 Apr 1944), Born Pollard, was a British heiress and one of the wealthiest women in Britain who, at the age of 37, became a Roman Catholic Nun, Sister Mary Clare and, subsequently, Mother Superior of the Order of Poor Clares. She was born as Amy Elizabeth Rosalie Pollard in British Guiana to William Branch Pollard and his first wife, Elizabeth Anne (née Blackley). After the death of…

The year was nineteen seventy-five. Barren couple, Pearl and Edward Riley stumbled upon a newborn baby girl. Her cries could only be heard by a true mother, which Pearl immediately became. Bundled up with their new child, they discovered a parcel of artifacts and a scribbled note that read: Sakkara. Pregnant seamstress, Petrina Dugal, became a runaway at the age of twenty-six. She ran away from a brutish husband, Roger, and a well-loved South American…

Born on October 31, 1993 in Georgetown, Guyana, Letitia Michelle Wright is an UK-based actress, known for her roles in Glasgow Girls, My Brother the Devil and Urban Hymn. Migrating to London with her mother at the age of six, Letitia first fell in love with acting at her Finsbury Park primary school when she got the opportunity to play a young Rosa Parks onstage. “I felt so comfortable,” she recalls. “I even did the…

IT was no surprise recently when the dazzling Onesha Hutson outclassed a field of other talented competitors to whisk away the coveted Miss Guyana Global International 2014 crown. In a ‘chit-chat’ with Entertainment Bombshell, the bubbly lass related that while she was not intimidated by her competition, she however had to bring her ‘A’ game to outrun the other beauties who were all intelligent and gifted in one way or the other. Expressing her pleasure…

Dr. Yvette Westford is a board certified Obstetrician/ Gynecologist with a pending board certification in Laser Medicine. She specializes in Cosmetic Gynecology and Aesthetics. Dr. Westford was raised in Guyana and immigrated to the United States after high school to attend college in New York.  She received her AAS in Physical Therapy from Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, and her BS in Biology from Pace University in New York City. Dr. Westford’s…

COVER GIRL: 22-Year-Old Guyanese model, RoseAnn Sumner, graces the cover of the current issue of Michigan’s Healthy & Fit Magazine. RoseAnn, you migrated from Guyana at the age of 5, is currently studying Diagnostic Molecular Science at Michigan State University. She Rocks! Check out her story >> here.    

Stabroek News – La Jalousie, West Coast Demerara resident Sasha Mahadeo was admitted to the local bar after Attorney General Anil Nandlall presented a petition on her behalf to Justice Navindra Singh. Mahadeo, who is the daughter of ND&S Furniture Store owner Parasram Mahadeo, is a former student of Queen’s College and School of the Nations. She completed her Cambridge A-levels programme at the latter mentioned learning institution. She successfully completed her LLB Degree in…

SOURCE: SKIN VIBES  | GUYANESE-BORN ONYKA BARRETT IS ONE OF AT LEAST FOUR CONFIRMED FEMALE SPEAKERS to address the 19th Conference of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) scheduled for the Jamaica Pegasus next week under the theme ‘The Drivers of Capital: From Concept to Growth’. Barrett is CEO & Social Impact Strategist at Pinnacle Impact International Limited and conference organisers want participants benefit from her 16 years of expertise working with multilaterals, international and local…