Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Ken­isha Thom-Selvon is all about beau­ty with pur­pose. "Help­ing peo­ple is not my call­ing, it is my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty," said the To­ba­go-born beau­ty who rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go at the Miss World and Miss Uni­verse pageants in 2004 and 2006, re­spec­tive­ly.

Thom-Selvon placed in the top 15 in the Miss World com­pe­ti­tion in Sanya, Chi­na, and was sec­ond run­ner-up in the Beach Beau­ty and Miss?Sports cat­e­gories. She al­so placed in the top 25 in the Miss Tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion. At the Miss Uni­verse com­pe­ti­tion in Los An­ge­les, Thom-Selvon placed in the top ten.

The 28-year-old for­mer beau­ty queen now jug­gles her du­ties as a moth­er, wife, stu­dent and di­rec­tor in a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion, as well as her job at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA). She is pur­su­ing post­grad­u­ate stud­ies in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) and has a First Class Ho­n­ours de­gree in man­age­ment stud­ies.

But what brings Thom-Selvon a great sense of sat­is­fac­tion is help­ing the less for­tu­nate. Arts-In­sight was in­cor­po­rat­ed in 2010 to as­sist the dis­abled and less priv­i­leged. The group's most re­cent project was in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the US Em­bassy and the Pres­i­dent's Emer­gency Plan for Aids Re­lief (PEP­FAR) where close to 20 liv­ing with or af­fect­ed by HIV/Aids at­tend­ed a six-week art work­shop in March.

Sev­er­al pieces of art­work were show­cased at the XIX In­ter­na­tion­al Aids Con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton DC in Ju­ly and re­ceived rave re­views, Thom-Selvon said. Two pieces were sold and the funds giv­en to the par­tic­i­pants. On Sep­tem­ber 21, an ex­hi­bi­tion was launched at Soft Box Stu­dio, Al­cazar Street, Mar­aval, to ex­hib­it the art­work lo­cal­ly. It was ti­tled Through Art There is Re­al­i­sa­tion.

In an in­ter­view last week, Thom-Selvon said: "Our main fo­cus is us­ing art as a form of ther­a­py. Peo­ple suf­fer phys­i­cal­ly but al­so men­tal­ly and art al­lows you to think from with­in." She said the idea to form an or­gan­i­sa­tion start­ed in 2009 when one of the di­rec­tors-a stranger, who suf­fers from cere­bral pal­sy, con­tact­ed her via Face­book. She said they be­gan com­mu­ni­cat­ing, then met one day with an­oth­er per­son and it was agreed that Arts-In­sight would be formed.

"We were three strangers who came to­geth­er," she said. The or­gan­i­sa­tion's di­rec­tors are Thom-Selvon, Ja­celle Alexan­der, Tor­ren­cia Car­di­nal and Ali­cia Smith. "We want to be­come in­volved in pol­i­cy-mak­ing de­ci­sions to help im­prove the life of our mem­bers," Thom-Selvon said.

She said peo­ple who suf­fered from HIV/Aids ex­pe­ri­ence fear, iso­la­tion and a range of oth­er emo­tions and art is able to help them over­come some of those fears. At the six-week art work­shop, par­tic­i­pants rang­ing from 16 to 26 years, were asked to ex­press through art, an in­ci­dent in their lives based a cer­tain top­ic and emo­tion.

Thom-Selvon said a coun­sel­lor and an artist were present to give guid­ance. She said some of them were over­come with emo­tion: "I have al­ways been in­volved in so­cial work and giv­ing my time and ef­fort to­wards a greater cause for hu­man­i­ty.

"It was a nat­ur­al thing to be part of the NGO. "I be­lieve it is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to as­sist those who are less for­tu­nate," Thom-Selvon said.

Con­tact Arts-In­sight: twit­ter.com/artsin­sight­n­go, face­book.com/arts.in­sight.ngo or Ken­isha Thom-Selvon at 354-4670, ken­ishath­om@artsin­fight­n­go.org