King’s Coun­ty Hos­pi­tal, Brook­lyn, New York, wel­comed a ba­by girl on Christ­mas morn­ing of 1997 named Tya Jané Ramey. A cou­ple of months lat­er, her moth­er re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go, and with the vi­brant com­mu­ni­ty of Five Rivers, raised a beau­ti­ful all-round­ed and elo­quent young woman that is to­day our Miss World Trinidad and To­ba­go Rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

The now 21-year-old beau­ty queen is a past stu­dent of Bish­op Anstey High School East who worked her way to rep­re­sent her peers as vale­dic­to­ri­an of the 2015 class. She start­ed her pre-ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion at UWI Open Cam­pus, fin­ish­ing a year lat­er with a Cer­tifi­cate in So­cial Work. To­day, the five-year na­tion­al ath­lete con­tin­ues to play vol­ley­ball and added bas­ket­ball to her scope dur­ing her three years as a So­cial Work and So­cial Pol­i­cy Mi­nor stu­dent, at UWI St Au­gus­tine. Tya Jané con­tin­ues to use her cre­ative niche, through dance and mu­sic, specif­i­cal­ly the sax­o­phone, in her per­son­al ex­pres­sion. Her pas­sion in­cludes, but are not lim­it­ed to, com­mu­ni­ty work and as­sist­ing chil­dren to reach their full po­ten­tial. Some­thing that you may not know about her from first glance is that she likes bar­ber­ing, and start­ed a course in her com­mu­ni­ty, to learn how to trim and fade hair.

How does it feel to be crowned Miss World TT?

It’s sur­re­al! It is a dream come true. I must ad­mit that it on­ly tru­ly reg­is­tered the morn­ing af­ter the crown­ing. I woke up, walked to the kitchen and was shocked at the bou­quet of flow­ers sit­ting in a jar of wa­ter, with my sash, tro­phy and crown at its side. The re­al­i­ty of it all, broke my com­po­sure and I basked in the tears of joy that flowed right af­ter. My 15-minute morn­ing med­i­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed to al­most an hour. I had so much to re­flect on and to be thank­ful for. I feel so grate­ful to have shared the six-week de­vel­op­men­tal jour­ney with nine beau­ti­ful and tal­ent­ed sis­ters. I am thank­ful that my hard work and ef­forts have been recog­nised and that God has grant­ed me favour of not on­ly the judges, but the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Why do you think peo­ple have a neg­a­tive im­age of pageantry?

I un­der­stand why peo­ple would think of it as a cat­tle show. We have seen where phys­i­cal fea­tures were the main fac­tors of con­sid­er­a­tion in de­ter­min­ing the win­ners of pageants. Each coun­try or com­mu­ni­ty may have their idio­syn­crat­ic idea of what per­fect fem­i­nine qual­i­ties should look like, and women may have once de­sired and tried to fit in­to those un­re­al­is­tic ideals. I am hap­py to say that we have evolved from that my­opic ap­proach, and have tran­scend­ed the no­tions of pageantry from just be­ing about van­i­ty. The Miss World com­pe­ti­tion has sought to cre­ate a plat­form that tru­ly rep­re­sents the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry woman. It en­com­pass­es tal­ent, fit­ness, pa­tri­o­tism, and beau­ty that goes be­yond the sur­face and it fa­cil­i­tates the con­cept that women play an ac­tive role in so­ci­ety and are the front-run­ners for so­cial change, rep­re­sent­ed in the form of Miss World’s ‘Beau­ty With a Pur­pose’ theme.

What have you learnt in prepar­ing for the Miss World TT com­pe­ti­tion?

I ex­pect­ed to gain cer­tain things when I ad­vanced to the top 10 of the pageant; I pre­dict­ed that I would have learnt how to walk like a pageant queen, the art of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and per­haps eti­quette. I didn’t an­tic­i­pate the per­son­al un­veil­ing and in­ti­mate shar­ing that took place. Train­ing with richard Young, an ex­pert in the in­dus­try, proved to be one of the most ed­i­fy­ing ex­pe­ri­ences dur­ing this jour­ney. It chal­lenged us (the con­tes­tants) to col­lec­tive­ly tap in­to the con­cept of self and to ex­ca­vate our ap­pre­ci­a­tion of our Caribbean iden­ti­ty through sto­ry­telling; the con­ver­gence of con­tent and form. This skill is not on­ly go­ing to al­low me to re­flect Trinidad and To­ba­go in the con­ver­sa­tions I have, but may give me a unique and com­pet­i­tive edge at the in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion.

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture?

Through­out my life, God has been re­veal­ing to me my pur­pose on this earth - To serve. Syn­ony­mous to the sinks and grooves of a key that is unique­ly cut for a lock, so too were the cir­cum­stances of my life serendip­i­tous and they man­i­fest­ed in a way that has led me to where I am to­day. The fam­i­ly I was born in­to, the com­mu­ni­ty in which I was raised, the trau­ma which I ex­pe­ri­enced and the vic­to­ries that I have won, were all in­ten­tion­al. My prayer is that I would ful­fil God’s plan for my life, by cre­at­ing an im­pact on the lives of oth­ers so that they might find restora­tion and em­pow­er­ment.

What are you look­ing for­ward to the most in rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage?

I am as­ton­ished at the stark per­son­al de­vel­op­ment that has oc­curred in on­ly six weeks. This pageant has chal­lenged me to be the best ver­sion of my­self and has shaped my holis­tic be­com­ing. I could on­ly imag­ine the growth that would take place in the next cou­ple of months, and when I get to Thai­land. Above all, this plat­form com­ple­ments well with my pas­sion for So­cial Work and So­cial Pol­i­cy, and I am ex­cit­ed to be a part of help­ing to re­store lives through my ‘Beau­ty With a Pur­pose’ project, and most im­por­tant­ly, show­ing the world what amaz­ing things Trinidad and To­ba­go has to of­fer.