THE ADVERTISERS TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 18, 2018 As a young Guyanese girl growing up in New York City from the age of 14, Aliann Pompey had no idea that her undiscovered talent would lead her to four consecutive summer Olympics, beginning in Sydney and ending in London. Medalling in two commonwealth games, gold in 2002 and silver in 2010, and competing at World Championships, are just some of many achievements Aliann has attained over the years;…
Congratulations Yvette Irving and daughter, Darcy George, grand prize winners of the “My Guyanese Mom Rock Contest! Runner up contestants Odetta Abiola Young and Angela McPherson will also each receive a GGR T-shirt. .
Her Ladyship, the Hon. Justice Louise Esther Blenman graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1986 with a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LL.B.) with Upper Second Class Honors. She later obtained the Legal Education Certificate from the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad in 1988. She was called to the Bar in Guyana, in 1988. Justice Blenman obtained the Masters of Law Degree (LL.M.) with merit from the University of London. Justice Blenman has served…
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…
US-based Brenessa Thompson & Aaliyah Abrams will be representing Guyana at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Brazil. The Olympic games will run from August 5 to 11 and Brenessa and Aaliyah are the two female athletes who make up Guyana’s 4 member Track Team. Brenessa Thompson (born 22 July 1996) is a Guyanese-American sprinter who specializes in 100m and 200m. The Four-time All-American of Medgar Evers college is one of the most prolific sprinters in the…
New York-based Kim A. Clarke is an internationally acclaimed multifaceted bassist, composer and educator, who counts her father, Henry Clarke, and her late Guyanese-born grandfather, trombonist/bassist Henry “Hy” Clarke, Sr., as her personal jazz heroes.” Kim plays the Acoustic Bass, Electric Upright and four and five-stringed Electric Bass Guitar. Her electric Bass playing has been described as soulful, funky, rich & tight. For more than 20 years Kim has performed with some of the world’s…
Michelle A. Albert, MD, MPH is a general cardiologist with expertise in preventive cardiovascular medicine as well as managing the most critically ill cardiovascular patients with a range of conditions including coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, cardiomyopathies and vulnerable populations with heart disease such as women and racial/ethnic minorities. Born and raised in Guyana, Dr. Albert had a fairly austere upbringing. The sudden death of her grandfather by cardiac arrest was probably the trigger for…
Earlier this month I had the pleasure of watching the young women of St. Albans Episcopal Church perform the Maypole dance at the annual Guyana Folk Festival held in Brooklyn, NY. I remember doing this as a little girl growing up in Guyana dressed up in frilly dresses and socks with colorful hair bows, as we danced and weaved the ribbons to the sound of music. Watching this recreated many, many years later brought back sweet memories. A maypole is a tall…
Born to Guyanese parents, Bronx native Leah Persaud, is a Ph.D. candidate in biology pursuing cancer research at the CUNY Graduate Center at Lehman College. Since 2015, Persaud has been conducting research in the lab of Moira Sauane, a professor in Lehman’s Department of Biological Sciences, that she hopes will ultimately lead to new cancer therapies and drug treatments. “The Lehman campus was always my first choice,” said Persaud, who expects to earn her Ph.D….
Marianna Hansen (born 17 February 1983), known professionally as Shaya, is a Danish–Greek singer of Guyanese and Indian descent. Shaya was a member of the girl band Hi-5, the result of the Greek version of the talent show Popstars. She is currently pursuing a solo career and finished fifth in Greece’s version of Dancing on Ice. Shaya was born in Denmark to a Danish father and a multiracial Guyanese mother of Greenlandic and Indian descent….
Nirmala Narine is a World Traveler, Author, Executive Producer, Television Host, and Founder of Nirmala’s Kitchen, the go-to company for spices, grains, sauces and much more. She was born in Guyana and at the age of six Nirmala began to cook in a tiny kitchen with no running water or electricity. It was Nirmala’s grandfather, an Arya Samaj Hindu Pandit, who schooled her in the ancient Indian arts of holistic cooking and Ayurvedic living. When…
Cecily Joseph, is the vice president of Corporate Responsibility at Symantec Corp. World Headquarters. Born to a German mom and Guyanese dad, Cecily Joseph oversees Symantec’s corporate responsibility efforts and serves as the company’s chief diversity officer. In her role, she oversees Symantec’s global corporate responsibility efforts, which encompass environmental, social, and governance program development as well as diversity and inclusion, integration and alignment. Cecily drives the implementation of community investment efforts including the Symantec Foundation, leads the…
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…
Communication Power and Change in the Caribbean takes a fascinating, holistic, multi-level actor-oriented approach to examining social change in two Caribbean countries. Paloma Mohamed evaluates the power of various communicative artefacts produced by various strata in those societies, investigating what constitutes this power, how it is used, how it is maintained and whose interests are served. The result is a richly researched, deeply thoughtful and passionately argued case for placing communication at the core of…
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…