Oluatoyin Alleyne

When Ileana Bonnard’s husband got a job with an international organisation she gave up her career and followed him.

“I just want to tell my story because I went through a lot abuse, but now I get out and I happy.

Telisha Williams is a young woman who has made it her mission to ensure the country’s children receive the protection many of them so desperately need and whether it is in church, on the road or at a wedding reception she does not hesitate to represent a child even if it means standing up to the parents.

“I love my son, but it is getting to a place where he would soon have to leave my house if he continues with his lifestyle.

It was at a point in his life when Lieutenant Colonel (Ret’d) Egbert Field was “feeling fit as a fiddle” and could have been described as a “fitness freak”, he said, that he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“I use to think that when the day come I would feel so free and happy that it was over.

A lump on her neck alerted Shirlean Alexander that something was not right but she did not expect to be diagnosed later with a form of thyroid cancer.

“Where were you last night? Where were you last night? You want knock me, you knock me,” the woman saying this was speaking to a man; she had grabbed his collar and was tugging and hitting him as she fired off the questions.

“Imagine I go to do a test for cervical cancer. I done frighten and shaky and to hear she talking about how she never hear about pap smear and she don’t know is what and all them things… I think what really wrong with these people,” she said.

Five days a week, Kameela Doodnauth dons a long-sleeve shirt, gloves, long pants, socks, sneakers and a cap, jumps on her bicycle and rides around sections of Georgetown selling hot and spicy snacks to provide for her family.

A few years after she got married Karen Mohamed-Dias decided it was time to have children, but she knew she had a hormonal condition and that it might pose some difficulty in her getting pregnant.

“I am so scared, but I know I have to find out what is wrong.

It was the end of the working day and I was leaving the office when I saw her; she gave me a wave with a bright smile.

“It does really hurt me, some days I would just sit down and cry to know that I carry he for nine months and now I don’t have no baby,” she said in tears.

With 22 persons murdered as a result of domestic violence up to November 30th  of last year,  Manager of the Domestic Violence Policy Unit Akilah Doris is cognizant that more needs to be done; she believes all must work together to fight this issue and there is need “to stop normalising gender-based violence on a whole.”

“I am not sure who you talking about because we don’t use first names here, we use last names, but if you know where to find her you can go ahead,” she said, smiling sweetly as she spoke.

At age 25, Vishal Joseph can be seen as an old head, as while this trainee doctor has youth on his side, his outlook on life is far beyond his age and he is action-oriented as well.

“Sometimes I just get so frustrated as a mother that I wonder why I get children.

“I felt hurt, disappointed but it confirmed an inner fear I had for many years,” she said simply, describing how she felt when she found out that her husband of many years and father of her children, had sexually molested their only daughter.

Come Christmas Day, 24-year-old Sarafina Edghill will be found in the kitchen whipping up some of her fancy meals for her mom and brothers.