At 18, Gabrielle Si­mon is no stranger to the stage.

From the dance floor to the gym­nas­tics mat, ath­let­ics track and cul­tur­al per­for­mances, the San Juan teenag­er has spent most of her life de­vel­op­ing the dis­ci­pline, con­fi­dence and cre­ativ­i­ty that now pre­pare her for one of the biggest op­por­tu­ni­ties of her young life.

To­day, Si­mon will make his­to­ry as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first del­e­gate to the Miss Caribbean Beau­ty and In­tel­li­gence Queen com­pe­ti­tion, where she will com­pete against sev­en del­e­gates from across the re­gion for the cov­et­ed ti­tle.

The re­gion­al pageant, now in its sec­ond year, aims to pro­vide a plat­form for young Caribbean women to show­case not on­ly beau­ty, but al­so in­tel­li­gence, cul­ture, tal­ent and lead­er­ship.

This year’s Miss Caribbean Beau­ty & In­tel­li­gence Pageant takes place in Guyana at 7 pm.

For Si­mon, how­ev­er, the com­pe­ti­tion rep­re­sents far more than a crown.

It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to tell her sto­ry, cel­e­brate her coun­try and demon­strate what can be achieved through years of hard work, per­se­ver­ance and a will­ing­ness to em­brace every op­por­tu­ni­ty to grow.

A per­former from the start

Raised by her sin­gle moth­er in San Juan, Si­mon’s jour­ney in­to the per­form­ing arts be­gan when she was just three years old.

At Lit­tle An­gels Preschool, dance start­ed as an ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ty. By the time she was four, she had added gym­nas­tics to her grow­ing list of in­ter­ests, join­ing Team­work Gym­nas­tics.

Her com­mit­ment to the sport soon took her be­yond Trinidad and To­ba­go. In 2014 and 2015, she rep­re­sent­ed Team­work Gym­nas­tics and her coun­try at the Gas­par­il­la Gym­nas­tics Clas­sics.

She lat­er joined New Cre­ation Pro­duc­tions, where she trained in bal­let, folk and con­tem­po­rary dance.

Af­ter eight years in ath­let­ics, Si­mon grad­u­al­ly shift­ed her at­ten­tion to­wards stage per­for­mance, dis­cov­er­ing a pas­sion for en­ter­tain­ing au­di­ences and us­ing per­for­mance as a means of con­nect­ing with peo­ple.

That evo­lu­tion con­tin­ues to­day through her work with Twin Inc Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny, owned by De­on and Ian Bap­tiste. There, she is de­vel­op­ing her skills in mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary dance while ex­pand­ing her reper­toire to in­clude dance­hall and hip-hop.

Bal­anc­ing books

and the stage

While per­for­mance has been a ma­jor part of Si­mon’s life, ed­u­ca­tion has re­mained equal­ly im­por­tant.

At El So­cor­ro North Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and Bish­op Anstey High School East, she man­aged to bal­ance aca­d­e­mics with an ex­ten­sive list of ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing track, swim­ming, foot­ball, gym­nas­tics, cheer­lead­ing and dance.

She al­so helped in­tro­duce gym­nas­tics, cheer­lead­ing and dance with­in her school com­mu­ni­ty and as­sist­ed her coach in teach­ing oth­ers.

Her aca­d­e­m­ic record was just as im­pres­sive. Si­mon con­sis­tent­ly achieved re­sults above 90 per cent through­out pri­ma­ry school and went on to earn strong re­sults in the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment and Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate ex­am­i­na­tions.

For Si­mon, the ex­pe­ri­ence of jug­gling aca­d­e­mics and mul­ti­ple ac­tiv­i­ties helped de­vel­op qual­i­ties that ex­tend well be­yond the class­room and stage: dis­ci­pline, time man­age­ment, team­work and re­silience.

Root­ed in cul­ture

While dance and per­for­mance opened doors for Si­mon, her con­nec­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­ture has be­come an im­por­tant part of her iden­ti­ty.

From 2017 to 2025, she was men­tored by Gre­gor Breedy through the San Juan South Cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion, where she re­mained an ac­tive mem­ber for eight years.

Dur­ing that time, she per­formed at ma­jor cul­tur­al events, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion and Car­ifes­ta 2019, as well as nu­mer­ous oth­er pro­duc­tions.

Those ex­pe­ri­ences gave her the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op as a per­former while gain­ing a deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the tra­di­tions and cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions that make Trinidad and To­ba­go unique.

Her jour­ney has not al­ways been easy. Fi­nan­cial chal­lenges have at times pre­sent­ed ob­sta­cles, but with the con­tin­ued sup­port of her fam­i­ly, Si­mon re­mained fo­cused on her am­bi­tions.

More than a pageant

Now, as she takes part the Miss Caribbean Beau­ty and In­tel­li­gence Queen 2026 com­pe­ti­tion in Guyana, Si­mon hopes her par­tic­i­pa­tion will in­spire oth­er young women to em­brace who they are.

She wants to use her plat­form to en­cour­age self-ex­pres­sion, con­fi­dence and in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly among young women who may be un­cer­tain about their own abil­i­ties or afraid to stand apart from the crowd.

Her years of ex­pe­ri­ence have taught her that tal­ent is on­ly one part of suc­cess. Be­hind every per­for­mance are hours of prac­tice, dis­ci­pline and de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Those lessons will trav­el with her to the re­gion­al stage to­day.

Si­mon’s par­tic­i­pa­tion is al­so a mile­stone for Trinidad and To­ba­go. This year marks the coun­try’s first ap­pear­ance in the Miss Caribbean Beau­ty and In­tel­li­gence Queen Show, giv­ing her the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of in­tro­duc­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion.

Pageant Di­rec­tor So­han Badall is lead­ing the coun­try’s par­tic­i­pa­tion and is call­ing on the pub­lic to ral­ly be­hind Si­mon as she em­barks on this his­toric jour­ney.

For the teenag­er from San Juan, car­ry­ing the Red, White and Black is an ho­n­our.

She ar­rives at the com­pe­ti­tion with years of dance, gym­nas­tics, ath­let­ics, ed­u­ca­tion and cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence be­hind her—and a de­sire to use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­spire oth­ers.

Whether on a stage, a dance floor or a pageant plat­form, Gabrielle Si­mon has spent much of her life learn­ing how to per­form.

To­day, in Guyana, she will take that ex­pe­ri­ence to the re­gion­al stage, proud­ly rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.