Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Last Sun­day night, amidst roars from the wait­ing au­di­ence, An­na-Lise Nan­ton was crowned Miss World T&T, the se­lect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the in­ter­na­tion­al pageant be­ing held in 2025.

Nan­ton was vis­i­bly thrown in­to shock and dis­be­lief, even as the glit­ter­ing crown was placed on her head and she was con­grat­u­lat­ed by her fel­low com­peti­tors.

A 26-year-old ge­ot­ech­ni­cal en­gi­neer hail­ing from Pax Vale, San­ta Cruz, Nan­ton did not al­ways dream about sport­ing the crown of Miss T&T World, but, with her navel string buried deep in her home­land, she felt per­pet­u­al­ly moved to rep­re­sent her coun­try on the world stage.

“Be­ing a big sis­ter is a sig­nif­i­cant part of who I am.”

Nan­ton is the el­dest of eight chil­dren, comes from a big ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly, and has been charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing a role mod­el to her younger sib­lings for as long as she can re­mem­ber. This role has shaped her, as it mo­ti­vat­ed her to achieve in her ed­u­ca­tion­al ca­reer, vol­un­teer with var­i­ous caus­es, and ex­cel in the field of sport and fit­ness.

Nan­ton is a past stu­dent of St Joseph’s Con­vent and pur­sued her ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bath af­ter win­ning an open schol­ar­ship, even­tu­al­ly grad­u­at­ing with first-class ho­n­ours in Civ­il En­gi­neer­ing.

Scep­tics of­ten view beau­ty pageants as a gath­er­ing of women with noth­ing more than an ex­ter­nal­ly ap­peal­ing fa­cade, but Nan­ton’s prowess de­bunks that scep­ti­cism, as she has the in­tel­li­gence, elo­quence, and kind­ness to match her out­ward beau­ty.

Cur­rent­ly em­ployed as a ge­ot­ech­ni­cal en­gi­neer at Earth In­ves­ti­ga­tions Sys­tems Lim­it­ed, Nan­ton con­tin­ues to har­ness the pow­ers of her big sis­ter role to ad­vance as a woman in a male-dom­i­nat­ed are­na.

“I have to be ex­tra con­fi­dent and stand up for my­self,” she says in re­sponse to the chal­lenges of be­ing un­der­es­ti­mat­ed as a woman in a male-dom­i­nat­ed STEM field.

“I’ve learnt that peers re­spect you when you are forth­com­ing with your ideas and opin­ions. I al­so al­ways ask for what I want, be­cause the worst some­one can tell me is no, but I’m not afraid of re­jec­tion.”

Re­turn­ing to T&T af­ter her stud­ies and ear­ly ca­reer, Nan­ton was thrust in­to an ex­plorato­ry phase of un­cov­er­ing and re­dis­cov­er­ing where she fit in her en­vi­ron­ment and how she could make a pos­i­tive im­pact.

She saw the most re­cent Miss World T&T pageant and was awed by the women’s pletho­ra of pur­pose-dri­ven projects, their in­tel­li­gence, and a plat­form that could reach the na­tion.

Nan­ton stum­bled on the ad­ver­tise­ment for Miss World T&T, and re­mem­ber­ing the pageant she saw, she felt drawn to the mul­ti­fac­eted con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tion of beau­ty with a pur­pose.

“I’m some­one who has al­ways been in­volved in vol­un­teer work and giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty, and I saw it as a way to give back on a much big­ger scale.”

Wrestling with her nerves at step­ping out of her com­fort zone, she tem­pered her ex­pec­ta­tions and went to the first call, “show­ing up with no make-up and my nat­ur­al hair while every­one else was re­al­ly glam with high heels. I de­cid­ed to take a chance on my­self, know­ing that this could be my op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a dif­fer­ence.”

As she suc­cess­ful­ly ad­vanced through the var­i­ous rounds of the com­pe­ti­tion, Nan­ton’s range of tal­ents shone bright­ly. Her ver­sa­til­i­ty was on dis­play, and she won the tal­ent por­tion do­ing an aer­i­al silks rou­tine and stood out in the fit­ness di­men­sion. Most im­por­tant to her through­out the jour­ney was the com­mu­ni­ty project she im­ple­ment­ed in her home in San­ta Cruz.

Apt­ly named “Sis­ter Strong”, she merged her love for fit­ness and sport with em­pow­er­ing women and girls through sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. Work­ing with a pri­ma­ry school, San­ta Cruz RC, she held week­ly rug­by coach­ing ses­sions with the girls.

She al­so host­ed a free fit­ness ses­sion at the San­ta Cruz Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre with old­er res­i­dents to get them mov­ing and un­der­stand the phys­i­cal and psy­choso­cial ben­e­fits of ex­er­cise. An­oth­er as­pect of the project was col­lect­ing da­ta by in­ter­view­ing sec­ondary school rug­by play­ers and lo­cal fe­male ath­letes and doc­u­ment­ing the im­pact that sport has had on them.

Through­out this project, Nan­ton hoped to trans­fer the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er that sport has had in­to her own life.

“It’s built my self-be­lief and my con­fi­dence; play­ing on teams has giv­en me a feel­ing of be­long­ing. It’s why, work­ing in a male-dom­i­nat­ed field, I can stand up for my­self.”

She sees sport as piv­otal for young women, es­pe­cial­ly those who may not be aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly in­clined, “so they can feel em­pow­ered and have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to shine.”

A com­peti­tor at heart, she earnest­ly delved in­to every as­pect of prepa­ra­tion for the pageant. “There’s a mis­con­cep­tion that mod­el­ling is su­per­fi­cial,” she says. I nev­er did it be­fore; it’s re­al­ly dif­fi­cult and takes a lot of ded­i­ca­tion and prac­tice.”

Along with the oth­er del­e­gates, all while bal­anc­ing her full-time en­gi­neer­ing job, Nan­ton spent her week­ends from 10 am to 4 pm in ded­i­cat­ed train­ing ses­sions for the com­pe­ti­tion, in­clud­ing fit­ness ses­sions, me­dia train­ing, and mod­el­ling skills train­ing.

To add to the rigour of the of­fi­cial prepa­ra­tions, she al­so en­list­ed her own train­ers as she felt new to the mod­el­ling world and need­ed guid­ance and coach­ing on her walk and pos­es.

For the tal­ent por­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion, con­sid­er­ing she had nev­er done aer­i­al silks se­ri­ous­ly be­fore, she went in­to in­tense train­ing and re­hearsal to be able to per­form at her best, even while suf­fer­ing from rope burns and new­found pains in her hands and fin­gers.

De­spite the hec­tic train­ing sched­ule, she felt ex­treme­ly grate­ful to the train­ers, fran­chise hold­ers, and every­one in­volved in the com­pe­ti­tion for en­sur­ing that all the women were more than ad­e­quate­ly pre­pared. “When they called my name, my mouth was wide open,” Nan­ton laughs. “I worked re­al­ly hard; this was a full-cir­cle mo­ment for me.”

Sad­dled with the habit of nit­pick­ing her per­for­mance, she did not ex­pect to win, es­pe­cial­ly among the throng of sim­i­lar­ly bright and beau­ti­ful women. One of the high­lights of her Miss World jour­ney was find­ing com­mu­ni­ty and sis­ter­hood among all the del­e­gates, with every­one sup­port­ing each oth­er dur­ing each leg of the com­pe­ti­tion.

A track and field ath­lete, Nan­ton pre­vi­ous­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Penn Re­lays dur­ing sec­ondary school and got a small taste of the pride and ho­n­our of rep­re­sent­ing her coun­try. Now al­lowed to rep­re­sent the coun­try on a larg­er scale, she takes huge re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in her stride, es­pe­cial­ly on the heels of the stel­lar per­for­mance by for­mer Miss World T&T in the last pageant, Aché Abra­hams.

“I have so much love in my heart for my sweet T&T, this is one of my life’s great­est ho­n­ours,” she says, earnest to dive in­to the prepa­ra­tion for the 2025 pageant. Un­der­stand­ing that her new plat­form means that young women will be look­ing at her ex­am­ple, Nan­ton en­cour­ages women to take on life’s chal­lenges head­first.

“One of my favourite quotes is that life be­gins when you step out of your com­fort zone,” she mus­es.

“Don’t be afraid to take a chance on your­self and go ap­ply for that job, that schol­ar­ship, or that uni­ver­si­ty.”

Al­though she has had rav­ing suc­cess in many ar­eas–from fit­ness to ed­u­ca­tion to sports– she in­sists that she hasn’t suc­ceed­ed in every­thing she has tried. How­ev­er, she does not let the po­ten­tial for fail­ure stop her from putting her­self out there and doesn’t con­sid­er any new ven­ture to be a fail­ure, as she has al­ways learned or gained some­thing.

“A woman who has pur­pose is a woman who’s beau­ti­ful.”

An­na-Lise Nan­ton is the em­bod­i­ment of a woman liv­ing her pur­pose, and her jour­ney is one of pas­sion, re­silience, and ded­i­ca­tion, re­flect­ing the pow­er and grace that emerge from a life im­bued with mean­ing. Her ex­ter­nal beau­ty is not lost in the eyes of the be­hold­er, but her in­ner beau­ty ra­di­ates, shaped by her val­ues and in­tent to make a pos­i­tive im­pact on her com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try, mak­ing her the per­fect can­di­date for Miss World.

Good luck, An­na-Lise, we are all root­ing for you!

Quick Q’s with An­na-Lise

Favourite TV shows or movies?

• Friends—it’s icon­ic!

• In­ter­stel­lar: I love any­thing sci-fi.

Favourite meal?

• Bake and shark

• Dou­bles; every­thing, slight pep­per

Dream des­ti­na­tions?

• Japan; re­al­ly in­trigued by the ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy

• South Africa; would love to go on a sa­fari.

• Chi­na; the food!!