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by Shirley Caines your Vice-President/Treasurer Let’s talk about resilience or at least the thing many of us call resilience but is actually just… being extremely good at suffering. Because somewhere along the way, especially in communities shaped by generational trauma and survival, we started confusing “I survived it” with “it made me stronger.” And those

A Tradition Older Than Our Last Name Wrapped in Wisdom: The Ancestral Art of Caribbean African Belly Binding – A Tradition Older Than Our Last Name A Tradition Rooted in Survival, Strength, and Love Across the Caribbean, our culture is stitched together by the hands of women who carried more than children they carried memory.

For generations, the people of St. Eustatius have carried stories that deserve to be heard—stories of resilience, culture, history, and the lasting impact of colonization. A newly published book provides a meaningful platform for Statians to share their personal memories, thoughts, and opinions about their island’s past, present, and future. More than just a collection

My name is Debby van de Seijp-Warner, I am a mixed media collage artist, born and raised in San Nicolas, Aruba.  I am a wife, a mother of five, and a grandmother of six (and counting 😊).   My work explores emotion, resilience, identity, and memory, with a focus on the silences surrounding the history of

The Truth We Were Never Told: Why Full Disclosure Is Essential for Caribbean Healing By Shirley Caines, Vice President & Treasurer of PNHSA For generations, we the descendants of the Transatlantic Slave Trade have lived in the Caribbean with only fragments of our true story. Our history was filtered, softened, and often sanitized. We were

By Shirley Caines, Vice President & Treasurer of PNHSA There is a truth we don’t talk about enough in our community. A truth that hides in our closets, fills our spare rooms, piles up in our yards, and weighs down our spirits. A truth that many of us carry with shame, confusion, or silence. Hoarding.

Reclaiming Our Future: Education, Identity & the Legacy of Enslavement in the Dutch Caribbean By Shirley Caines, Vice-President & Treasurer, PNHSA Introduction For generations, the descendants of enslaved Africans in the six Dutch Caribbean islands Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius, and Saba have carried a history that was never meant to be written

Written by your Vice President & Treasurer, Shirley Caines of PNHSA Let’s take a moment to appreciate and talk head wrap, that glorious swirl of fabric that can turn a “don’t talk to me today” mood into a “bow down, peasants” moment in under 30 seconds. Those vibrant, sculptural, personality‑packed crowns that Black women have

Written by Shirley Caines, Vice-President and Treasurer of the Plataforma Nacional Herencia di Sclavitud na Aruba (PNHSA) Body shaming is not just a comment about someone’s appearance it is a wound that cuts into identity, dignity, and self-worth. For Black African women, this wound is not new, it is inherited. It is layered with history,

You ever notice how in the Caribbean we love to use the word bacanal? “Boy, last night was a whole bacanal.” “Carnival coming, prepare for the bacanal.” We use the word like it’s ours, and in a way, it is.But the story behind it?That story is bigger than we think. Here’s the thing… Most of