Category: Features

By Lakhram Bhagirat People choose not to share their experiences for a number of reasons and one of the major ones is to escape society’s judgment. The feeling of being judged is too much for some people to deal with and it quite often deprives some people of the help they really need. Not everyone is willing to share that they are suffering from a disease so deadly that it requires a great deal of courage to beat, and even that is not guaranteed. However, Christine Jardim is of the…

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By Lakhram Bhagirat Cancer is one of the most feared illnesses throughout the world and the fact that there is no cure in sight compounds that fear even more. For Janalyn Fraser, she was paralysed with fear when she was diagnosed with breast cancer almost two years ago. “When they first told me that I had cancer, I felt my world collapsing and I didn’t know what was happening after, but I placed everything in God’s hands and I have been guided and is still being guided,” she said. Fraser…

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As cliché as it sounds, teaching is really the mother of all professions but our teachers are more than often given the short end of the proverbial straw. In most counties throughout the world, teachers are overworked and underpaid. We recently saw the power of teachers, in Guyana, when the 2018-2019 school year commenced. Schools had to be closed down and students sent away because the majority of the teachers decided to take to the streets demanding better working conditions, benefits as well as increased salaries. This move came about…

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As the month-long Indigenous Heritage celebration culminated, hundreds of patrons from all walks of life were yesterday treated to the sights, tastes and sounds of the rich Indigenous culture at St Cuthbert’s Mission in the Mahaica river. According to the Department of Public Information, activities commenced at the village benab with poems, dances, songs and renditions from various cultural groups within the only Indigenous settlement in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); and all of those activities depicted the way of life of Guyana’s first peoples. There were also live demonstrations of the…

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As a young child, we all have dreams and we plan our lives around those dreams but as we grow older and reality kicks in, we are forced to accept that our dreams are sometimes too farfetched. That was the same dilemma Rajkumarie Lall found herself in when she was ready to enter into the world of work a few decades ago. The 48-year-old teacher has been attached to the Anna Regina Multilateral Secondary School for over two and a half decades but has been teaching for over 30 years.…

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By Lakhram Bhagirat We all have that one teacher who made an indelible mark on our lives and for Keisha Rose that teacher was her “stern” Grade Six teacher. The mark was made when her teacher explained the principles of long division in great detail, and that moment led her to the light of teaching. “At that very moment the light bulb went on for me not to say that I had an idea, but I found my passion, and from that day onwards I told myself that I wanted…

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The phrase ‘procreative expletive’ in the book Three Singles to Adventure’ by India-born British naturalist, zookeeper, and conservationist Gerald Durrell hooked my attention, in the first instance, due to a local video that had gone viral recently leading to the courts, and I further say not on that matter. That phrase was there when I first read the book in the late 1960s (macaw on cover; there were umpteen cover designs by various publishing houses issued down the ages) as it was present when the book was first published in…

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By Lakhram Bhagirat Quite often the struggles of a teacher go unnoticed despite them making so many sacrifices in order to educate the nation’s children. Over the past decade, Modern Languages teacher Anurama Ramgobin has been indomitable. Ramgobin is now in the prime of his life and says he is very much proud of all he has accomplished so far, noting that the road does not end here but rather there are so many more miles to go. For the past 10 years he has been teaching Spanish and Portuguese…

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By Lakhram Bhagirat Every teacher has his or her goals when they join the profession, the aim to mould and impart knowledge to make their students worthy citizens and that has been the goal of Lloyd Thomas from the beginning Born and raised in Kwakwani, Berbice River, Thomas is a 29-year-old Spanish, Theatre and Performing Arts teacher at the St Joseph High School. Education is and has always been a priority to Thomas and his family as, he explains, education is viewed as the gateway out of poverty. He notes…

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The phrase ‘procreative expletive’ in the book Three Singles to Adventure’ by India-born British naturalist, zookeeper, and conservationist Gerald Durrell hooked my attention, in the first instance, due to a local video that had gone viral recently leading to the courts, and I further say not on that matter. That phrase was there when I first read the book in the late 1960s (macaw on cover; there were umpteen cover designs by various publishing houses issued down the ages) as it was present when the book was first published in…

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