Category: Features

Making it in Business

TIMES INT'L

Despite the ups and downs, crafter not giving up on her passion. Lawanda Pillay has always been artistic but, for a while in her life, she says in an interview with Sunday Times Magazine, her focus on art drifted. Life got in the way. Even after successful CXC results in 2005, she couldn’t get a job; most business places were telling her she was too young. Born in May, 1988 in Georgetown, Lawanda had attended Saint Stanislaus College where she wrote CXC. Unsuccessful at job hunting at 17, she took…

Read More

‘Accolades to Berbice High School’ by Dr Tulsi Dyal Singh

TIMES INT'L

BY PETAMBER PERSAUD A school is not four walls; an outstanding school is not made up of four walls only. A good school is made up of people and stories: Of the people, some which can be placed in broad categories: good, bad or indifferent. Of the stories, some which may be good, bad or shocking. This seems to be the main but not the only approach taken by Dr Tulsi Dyal Singh in his book, “Accolades to Berbice High School on its Centenary Anniversary”, prepared especially to mark the…

Read More

A brief history of the balata industry

TIMES INT'L

British Guiana was the earliest and longest commercial producer of balata among the Guianas.According to “Tropical Forests of the Guiana Shield: Ancient Forests in a Modern World”, edited by D. S. Hammond, almost 28,000 t was produced between 1893 and 1988,though commercial production of balata ceased in 1982. While indigenous populations had long used balata to make balls for playing games, temporary tooth fillings and for carving decorative art work such as figurines, the discovery of a“rubber tree” boosted the economic activity in British Guiana as worldwide demand for rubber…

Read More

A True Passion

TIMES INT'L

Girendra Persaud always wanted to be involved in a field that was exciting, challenging and creative.“I was always fascinated with technology and I love to discover how things work. My parents always had problems with me taking the toys apart in my efforts to see the inside,” he reveals in an interview with Sunday Times Magazine. With a degree in Computer Science and an MBA; owner and founder of web development company GxMedia, university lecturer and hobbyist photographer who has made his hobby into a business,it may be safe to…

Read More

Traditional customs of childbirth

TIMES INT'L

Part 1 Many of the age-old indigenous postnatal customs are fading due to new technologies and urbanization. However, research done on these customs still make for a good read, and may even encourage youths of today to learn more about their heritage. Phyllis Jordan’s “Amerindians customs after birth”, a chapter in the book “Focus on Amerindians” (May 1980), highlights some of these customs; the following are excerpts from her text. Indigenous postnatal customs include practices by both the mother and the father of the newborn infant. Europeans have labelled these…

Read More

Guarding against Cyber-attacks

TIMES INT'L

A report by US-based Inter-American Development Bank and the Organisation of American States has revealed that Latin America and the Caribbean are highly vulnerable to potentially devastating cyber-attacks. The report said that four out of five countries in Latin America and the Caribbean do not have a strategy to prevent cyber-attacks. The report added that nations such as Mexico, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Chile have an intermediate level of preparedness, but remain far from advanced nations like the United States, Estonia and Israel. When we hear about data breaches…

Read More

Making a business work

TIMES INT'L

Lexton Williams has come a long way from his early crafting years, but he is the first to admit that business isn’t easy and he’s learned a lot over the years Fashion accessory designer and leatherworker Lexton Williams of LW Designs, a local company whose designs and manufacture include wallets and clutch purses,declared in an interview with Sunday Times Magazine, that his major life’s lesson“is that I failed so many times at trying to do business I’ve lost alot, but the real truth is that while I’ve failed, I learned,…

Read More

Local, overseas Guyanese artists for US art exhibition

TIMES INT'L

A group of notable Guyanese artists, residing here and abroad, will be part of a memorable exhibition to be held in the USA. ‘Un | Fixed Homeland’ brings together an inter-generational roster of 13 emerging and established Guyanese artists who, via photography and photography-based art, examine the complex relationship to “homeland.” These artists explore how a “homeland” can be both fixed and unfixed, a constantly shifting idea and memory, and a physical place and a psychic space. The exhibition’s title reflects the emergence of the Caribbean diaspora in metropolitan cities…

Read More

The Calm of St. Cuthbert’s Mission

TIMES INT'L

St. Cuthbert’s Mission is one of the most easily accessible Amerindian villages along the East Bank.The site of this quaint village emerges after about a half-hour travel through a scenic sandy trail, one of the many trails along the Soesdyke/Linden Highway. On entering the village, one will quickly notice how serene it is. No noise nuisance or traffic, just village life at its best. One interesting feature that brings many tourists to the village is the pitch black waters of the Mahaica River, which flows through the village. It is…

Read More

Linden Museum of Socio-Cultural Heritage

TIMES INT'L

The Linden Museum of Industrial and Socio-Cultural Heritage on Co-op Crescent in Mackenzie, is located in one of Linden’s most historic buildings, according to the National Trust of Guyana. The building was constructed in 1925 and was known as the Recreational Hall where it was used for dances, indoor games; as a cinema and general meeting place. Later, in the 1970s, it served as the Linden Consumer Goods Complex; today, after much negotiations, it houses the “Linden Museum of Socio-Cultural Heritage”, its official name, according to  lindentourism.com The museum was…

Read More