Oluatoyin Alleyne

Growing up, Ellen Smith imagined herself being a mechanical engineer; she was always fascinated with fixing her bicycle wheels and always wanted to know more.

“I looking fuh a new job because I had to just leave the job in the market because I didn’t able with what you have to go through there.

Assaulted and later forced out of the place she called home, her clothes and that of her daughter flung out, a pregnant 36-year-old Jenny (not her real name) made the streets her home.

Anita Bennie was up late watching television one night in March last year when she passed her hand across her right breast and felt a lump.

World Suicide Prevention Day is observed annually on September 10. It is organised by the International Association for Suicide Prevention and endorsed by the World Health Organization and represents a global commitment to focus attention on suicide prevention.

Thirty-year-old Ayla Kenyon is on a mission to ensure that indigenous people, moreso those in the Rupununi region, depend more on the livestock they rear for their protein input instead of hunting wildlife, which she believes has to become more sustainable.

“It was a trying 12 years but you know if I had to do it all over again I would do it because even though she never walk, never really talk and you do everything for her she was still such a beautiful child.

Guyanese Oneeka Williams’ journey to becoming the first Black woman to train in Urologic Surgery at the Lahey Clinic, in Burlington, Massachusetts, in the United States was filled with twists and turns that she now uses as an inspiration for others, especially the young, as in her own words she is on a mission to “reshape how we think” as she “swings for the fences” and encourages others to do the same.

“For me, I want my children to go to school because it is like I losing them.

Caleb Cloggan was six months into his studies to become a medical doctor when his mother died suddenly in her sleep, two days after she was diagnosed with diabetes.

“I am planning to get married again soon and this time I want to wear a white wedding dress.

After serving the United States Navy for 23 years, Michelle Simmons decided it was time to retire and give back to society, especially to the land she once called home, Guyana.

Warning: The following article contains content about sexual abuse that may trigger an anxiety response in some readers.

Seven years after she travelled to the remote village of Yupukari in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) after being awarded a scholarship for a Study Abroad Programme, Jennifer Bucolo, a licensed social worker, returned for a visit but ended up falling in love and months later married Guyanese Jenkins Lawrence and made the village her home.

“I am just happy that I get to see my children and now I have them again.

Long before Patricia Cummings made headlines for vaccinating United States Vice-President Kamala Harris, she was a nurse who enjoyed caring for her patients as much as she could.

“I just want to see my children. I miss them so much and it is almost two months since I have not seen them.

As a young doctor in internal medicine Kamela Bemaul-Sukhu was troubled by the many patients with blood disorders who at times lay in hospital beds for long periods with no real help given to them; this drove her to become specialised and today she is the only hematologist in the country.

It was a struggle for Michelle Kenyon to leave the only home she knew in the Rupununi to attend secondary school in Georgetown and she recalls how shocked she was at everything she saw.

“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. Even if I don’t like somebody I wouldn’t want them to go through this pain I feeling.