Born in Guyana, the seventh of eight children, Gloria Rajkumar moved to Canada after graduating high school. It was an entry-level position in the insurance industry that started Gloria on the path that led to where she is today and she spent the next 19 years climbing the proverbial corporate ladder. Gloria is the President and CEO of SIMAC Canada Inc., an Ontario-based independent medical examination company, primarily serving the auto insurance industry. In 2001 Gloria was involved in…
Meet Our Sheroes
I had a really awesome time last night hanging with the lovely ladies of Les Deux Ms Jewelry (Antia McGill & Dyonne Miller); Miss Guyana World 2012 (Arti Cameron) and Michelle Cole of COLEFACTS. The Event was held at the Limelight Marketplace in New York City to showcase the fashion creations of several well known designers such as Edwing D’Angelo and Michelle Cole and jewelry from Les Deus Ms. All of the pieces on display were highly fashionable, beautifully…
Nadia Jabour is a Guyanese born jewelry designer living in Toronto. In an interview with Guyana Times Sunday Magazine, she revealed that she started designing jewelry in Canada about 5 years ago. “I have always been creative, but after moving back to Canada was never able to find a niche area of the arts to develop, but with having teenage girls always wanting to have something different, I ventured into a class and never stopped after…
Born Shamain Greaves June 3, 1992 in Georgetown, Guyana it was music from the start. The daughter of the lead singer of Frontline, a popular band based in Guyana, she drew her musical influences from reggae, R&B, soul and those unforgettable golden oldies. At age 3 she moved to the United States and by age 5 began attending Thomas G. Pullen an arts magnet school located in Landover, Maryland. There Shamain studied the violin under the late Leslie Thomas…
Tessa McWatt is an internationally published author born in 1959 in Georgetown, Guyana. Her family migrated to Canada when she was three, and she grew up in Toronto where she pursued her love of writing and music. She is the author of five earlier novels; her second, Dragons Cry, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and the City of Toronto Book Award. As an adult, Tessa worked as an editor in Toronto…
04 Dec: She Rocks! Meet Khadijatou Doyneh, aka K2, International Singer/ Songwriter/Spoken Word Poet
Khadijatou Doyneh, aka K2, is a Guyanese raised and London based singer-songwriter, author, spoken word poet, musician, and dancer. Her extensive travel across Europe, USA, Canada and Africa at an early age gave birth to Khadijatou’s ‘lifetime travel-bug’ and wish to contribute to creative culture. She started her performing arts career in dance theatre after graduating with a BA (Hons) Dance and Spanish. She discovered her aptitude for writing, blending words and rhythms, and became a recognized artist on the …
‘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…
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…
Soulful. Divine. Spellbinding. Simone Denny is…a legend in the making. Born and raised in Toronto, this powerhouse diva is of Guyanese heritage. Simone’s Caribbean Canadian environment exposed her to a wide and eclectic mixed bag of musical influences. She grew up listening to calypso, reggae, Brazilian music, and of course, R&B. Simone knew in her heart that music would always be a major part of her life. Singing at a talent show in the 6th grade…