meet carlana
The Person Behind Sankofa
I’m Carlana Charles-McGuire, a Grenadian consultant, writer and naturally curious observer of people, places and the systems that shape our lives.
I have always been interested in the questions beneath the obvious ones. Why do organisations work the way they do? How does history continue to influence the decisions we make? Whose knowledge do we value, and whose do we overlook?
That curiosity is what led me to create Sankofa.
I believe meaningful change begins with better questions.
Much of my professional work focuses on people, systems and institutions. Through Paperclip Limited, I help organisations think more clearly about how they operate, how people experience their systems and what needs to change for them to work better.
Sankofa allows me to take that curiosity into a wider, more personal space.
Here, I explore what our histories, communities and everyday encounters can teach us. I listen for the wisdom carried by people whose experiences may never appear in formal reports, but whose lives hold important lessons about leadership, resilience, belonging and change.
The question that followed me home
The idea for Sankofa became clearer during a trip to The Bahamas.
Two conversations stayed with me. One was with a Haitian taxi driver. The other was with a vendor on the beach. They were unplanned, ordinary encounters, but both left me thinking about migration, identity and the knowledge people carry with them.
I returned home with a question:
What wisdom would your country contribute to the Global South?
I knew I wanted to keep asking it wherever I went.
Sankofa became a place for those conversations, as well as the observations, memories and questions that emerge along the way.
Where Sankofa and Paperclip meet
Paperclip and Sankofa are different expressions of the same curiosity.
Through Paperclip, I examine how people, systems and institutions function today. Through Sankofa, I look at the histories, experiences and inherited wisdom that help explain how we arrived here and what we might do next.
One focuses more directly on organisational change. The other creates room for stories, reflection and learning across cultures.
Both begin with listening. Both ask us to look more closely at what is already around us. And both are grounded in my belief that the answers we need do not always have to come from somewhere else.
Carrying the question forward
I do not approach Sankofa as someone arriving with all the answers. I approach it as a learner.
I want to have honest conversations, notice what is easily overlooked and make space for people to share what their communities have taught them. Some stories may lead to insight. Others may leave us with more questions.
That is part of the journey.
If something here makes you pause, remember or reconsider what you thought you knew, then Sankofa is doing what I hoped it would do.