Miss World Trinidad and To­ba­go 2025, An­na-Lise Nan­ton, has writ­ten an open let­ter to her coun­try while vis­it­ing Telan­gana, In­dia, re­flect­ing on the cul­tur­al con­nec­tions, shared val­ues, and her ex­pe­ri­ences abroad.

Nan­ton is in Telan­gana as part of her Miss World du­ties and de­scribed the warmth, tra­di­tion, and en­er­gy of the south­ern In­di­an state as rem­i­nis­cent of home. In her let­ter, she not­ed how her­itage and in­no­va­tion ex­ist side by side in Hy­der­abad, which she called “Cy­ber­abad,” where glob­al tech com­pa­nies op­er­ate along­side cen­turies-old cul­ture.

She com­pared the two coun­tries, high­light­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Project Lara— the Caribbean’s largest so­lar farm— and the pride in nam­ing it af­ter crick­et leg­end Bri­an Lara.

Nan­ton al­so re­flect­ed on women’s em­pow­er­ment in Telan­gana, where Self-Help Groups en­able women to lead busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives. She de­scribed her vis­it to the In­te­grat­ed Com­mand and Con­trol Cen­tre, which us­es ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy to en­sure the safe­ty of women in pub­lic spaces.

“This is an em­pow­er­ing mod­el which res­onates with my work at The Shel­ter in Trinidad and To­ba­go, where I serve as the youngest board mem­ber, of­fer­ing sup­port, safe­ty, and new be­gin­nings for women in cri­sis,” she wrote.

Nan­ton al­so ref­er­enced the lead­er­ship of women in Trinidad and To­ba­go, say­ing, “I al­so feel so proud when I say that in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the top three na­tion­al of­fices are held by women – our Pres­i­dent, our Prime Min­is­ter, and our Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. This is not just rep­re­sen­ta­tion, it’s in­spi­ra­tion.”

She spoke about shared cul­tur­al tra­di­tions, in­clud­ing fes­ti­vals like Bathukam­ma in Telan­gana and Di­wali, Hosay, and Christ­mas in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Crick­et, she added, is a pas­sion both na­tions share.

“The love for the game here is elec­tric, and yes, I learned that Bhuwanesh­war Ku­mar is just one of Telan­gana’s bowl­ing gems. Imag­ine my joy when I shared that I’ve met and per­son­al­ly know Bri­an Lara and Dwayne Bra­vo, not re­al­iz­ing just how leg­endary they are here in In­dia,” Nan­ton wrote. “These out­stand­ing sports­men are more than ath­letes. They’re lit­er­al­ly like gods to crick­et lovers across this coun­try.”

Nan­ton al­so praised Telan­gana’s ad­vance­ments in ed­u­ca­tion through tech­nol­o­gy and said she was proud that Trinidad and To­ba­go is launch­ing a na­tion­al pro­gramme to pro­vide AI-pow­ered lap­tops to every school­child.