Maritza Lord is a NYC-based Artist and Musician, born and raised in Georgetown, Guyana. She became a professional musician after moving to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music. Marita grew up in a household filled with music. Her father sang and played guitar and her mother encouraged a career in music early on and began her education of classical piano and voice and performing publicly at a young age. “As a kid, I loved to sing, play the…
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…
Marcie De Santos started designing over five years ago. She always had a passion for unique clothes, so she started by designing for herself and soon realized that she had a flair for designing. She prides herself in the uniqueness of the color blends that she uses. Her target is mainly women whose desire is to exude femininity in unique, exuberant, eye catching styles. The Guyana Fashion Week (GFW) 2008 was her debut runway show…
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…
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…
Avril Anande Trotman–Joseph is a Guyanese-born accomplished attorney-at-law, whose career spans over twenty-five years. She is admitted to practice by the Bars of Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Grenada and the British Virgin Islands. A Founding Partner of Chapman and Trotman – Georgetown, Guyana, she was the President of the Guyana Bar Association, the Guyana Association of Women Lawyers, and the Tourism Association of Guyana and has been a consultant for USAID, UNICEF and the OAS…
The Philanthropic work of a 26-year-old Guyanese woman has earned her the prestigious Queen’s Young Leaders Award 2017. Samantha Sheoprashad was born and bred in Enterprise, East Coast Demerara with her two siblings and parents. She is a suicide survivor-focused on making a difference in her community and helping young persons to realize their potentials. The young and ambitious entrepreneur has been working with disadvantaged communities in Guyana for some years through her non-governmental organization…
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…
Abiola Abrams is a first generation Guyanese-American author, columnist, speaker, filmmaker and multimedia personality who was raised in New York City. Also a certified wellness coach, Abiola gives heartfelt, no-nonsense, stigma-free advice on self esteem and self worth, body image issues, healthy relationships, mental health, sexual health, and how to live with verve. The first person in her Guyanese family born in the US, Abiola was bullied in her African American neighborhood for being “the…
Dr. Marilyn Fraser is the Chief Executive Officer at the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center and the co-Director of the Brooklyn Health Disparities Center. In her previous capacities as the Deputy Director and the Associate Director for Research & Training, she was primarily responsible for overseeing the Institute’s community outreach and research programs. In March 2019, Dr. Fraser was named…
Allison Butters-Grant is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Seafood Distributors, an importing/exporting business that she jointly operates with her husband, Kerwin. The daughter of successful seafood entrepreneurs she opened her own Seafood Market in Guyana specializing in wild caught seafood sourced from Guyana with the mantra “straight from the sea to your plate.” Her business distributes seafood locally in Guyana and to the international markets, including the Caribbean and the US. In 2015, Guyana Chronicle…
Born on January 16, 1982, Thara Natalie Prashad, musically known as Thara, is an American R&B singer/ songwriter/actress of Guyanese Heritage. Her father is Indo-Guyanese and her mother is part Irish and part African-American. While pursuing degrees in biology and acting at Fordham University, the sassy singer gave up her scholarship to pursue a music career. Thara impressed DJ Clue of Desert Storm Label with her audition and was offered a music contract in 2004….
Guyana Chronicle, October 21, 2018 AYANA Alexis Fable, brimming with joy over her recent admission to the Guyana Bar Association, is confident that her decision to put aside all distractions while pursuing her studies is largely responsible for the kind of success that she is enjoying at the moment. Had she not decide to heed her father’s advice to stay thoroughly focused on her goals, the 23-year-old told the Pepperpot Magazine that she would not…
Letting go helps us to to live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress. Melody Beattie
Congratulations to Guyanese-born Scholar, Kelly Hyles, on her recent graduation from the prestigious High School for Math, Science and Engineering in Queens, New York. The 18 year old Valedictorian will be attending Harvard University this Fall on a full scholarship, following her very impressive acceptance to a total of 21 colleges, including all 8 top Ivy Leagues schools in the US. Back in April, 2016, Kelly was also the recipient of the very first Guyanese Girls Rock Award,…