Vini­ta Manoo is step­ping in­to the spot­light as Miss Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go 2026, bring­ing a back­ground in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and cross-cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence to the na­tion­al ti­tle.

Born and raised in San Juan, Manoo’s jour­ney has tak­en her from Trinidad and To­ba­go to Colom­bia, France and across Eu­rope and Latin Amer­i­ca, where her in­ter­est in peo­ple, lan­guages and cul­tures helped shape both her aca­d­e­m­ic and pro­fes­sion­al path.

A na­tion­al sci­ence schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent, she pur­sued stud­ies in for­eign lan­guages and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions be­fore mov­ing in­to com­mu­ni­ca­tions. She lat­er worked at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, con­tribut­ing to na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions projects and sup­port­ing mis­sions in­volv­ing diplo­mats, in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and glob­al con­fer­ences.

Her aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney con­tin­ued with a Mas­ter’s de­gree in Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Pub­lic Re­la­tions through an in­ter-cam­pus pro­gramme be­tween Scot­land and Barcelona.

Now, as she pre­pares to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go at Miss Uni­verse 2026, Manoo is draw­ing on those ex­pe­ri­ences while be­gin­ning a very dif­fer­ent kind of in­ter­na­tion­al as­sign­ment.

The 2026 cam­paign will com­bine pageantry with fash­ion, cul­ture, tourism and orig­i­nal en­ter­tain­ment con­tent aimed at au­di­ences in Trinidad and To­ba­go and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Stolen Pro­duc­tions Ltd. (SPL) is man­ag­ing the Miss Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go 2026 pageant pro­duc­tion and has al­so ac­quired the rights to film and pro­duce an orig­i­nal re­al­i­ty se­ries doc­u­ment­ing Manoo’s jour­ney to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

Found­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, SPL is an ex­port-fo­cused film, tele­vi­sion and en­ter­tain­ment pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny de­vel­op­ing lo­cal­ly cre­at­ed con­tent for in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences. Its port­fo­lio in­cludes un­script­ed tele­vi­sion, film, live en­ter­tain­ment and in­ter­na­tion­al pageantry-re­lat­ed pro­duc­tions.

For Manoo, the op­por­tu­ni­ty rep­re­sents more than a pageant ti­tle. Af­ter nav­i­gat­ing sig­nif­i­cant per­son­al loss and ma­jor life tran­si­tions, she chose to re­con­nect with am­bi­tions she had pre­vi­ous­ly placed on hold and be­gin a new chap­ter.

Her out­look is summed up in a sim­ple mes­sage: “There is no ex­piry date on be­com­ing who you were meant to be.”

The months ahead will in­volve in­ten­sive prepa­ra­tion in fash­ion, beau­ty, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ences and oth­er ar­eas as Manoo gets ready for the Miss Uni­verse com­pe­ti­tion.

Her prepa­ra­tion will al­so un­fold on screen through SPL’s up­com­ing re­al­i­ty pro­duc­tion, which is ex­pect­ed to give au­di­ences a be­hind-the-scenes look at the peo­ple, pres­sures and trans­for­ma­tion in­volved in prepar­ing to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Manoo is al­so en­ter­ing a pageant with a sig­nif­i­cant lo­cal his­to­ry.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has pro­duced two Miss Uni­verse win­ners: Janelle Com­mis­siong, who made his­to­ry in 1977 as the first Black woman to win the ti­tle, and Wendy Fitzwilliam, who won in 1998.

The 2026 cam­paign aims to build on that lega­cy while pre­sent­ing a new Trinidad and To­ba­go sto­ry to au­di­ences around the world.

The Miss Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go 2026 jour­ney is pre­sent­ed by Sav­age Restau­rant, the of­fi­cial pre­sent­ing part­ner, whose sup­port forms part of the pro­duc­tion and Manoo’s in­ter­na­tion­al jour­ney.