The win­ner of the Miss World Trinidad and To­ba­go Pageant will re­ceive over TT$500,000 in cash and prizes,” ac­cord­ing to Charu Lochan Dass, fash­ion de­sign­er, new fran­chise hold­er and Na­tion­al Pageant Di­rec­tor of the Miss World Trinidad and To­ba­go Pageant.

Since tak­ing over the fran­chise, Charu Lochan Dass, along­side the Or­gan­is­ing Vol­un­teer Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, has been col­lab­o­rat­ing with cor­po­rate spon­sors to se­cure the spon­sor­ship of cash and prizes for the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al pageantry in or­der to en­sure the Miss World Trinidad and To­ba­go Pageant is kept in the na­tion­al spot­light.

“This year, we cel­e­brate a mile­stone of 60 years of in­de­pen­dence. This pageant is so much more than a com­pe­ti­tion, it is about na­tion­al ser­vice and in­still­ing a sense of pride and pa­tri­o­tism in our young girls. We love this coun­try, and as cit­i­zens, we are proud of how far we have come. As such, we have re­lied on the good­will of our cor­po­rate spon­sors and we are pleased to an­nounce that for the first time ever, our Miss World Trinidad and To­ba­go del­e­gate will re­ceive over TT$500,000 in cash and prizes,” Lochan Dass said in a re­lease.

“West Bees Su­per­mar­ket is con­tribut­ing TT$100,000 in cash to the win­ner. The School of Ac­count­ing and Man­age­ment (SAMS Caribbean Ltd) will give a schol­ar­ship worth TT$10,000. Kalloo’s Au­to Rentals will pro­vide an ex­ec­u­tive chauf­feured ser­vice to ma­jor events year-round worth over TT$50,000, with var­i­ous lo­cal de­sign­ers do­nat­ing a full wardrobe and ac­ces­sories with over TT$200,000 in ex­quis­ite gowns and sig­na­ture pieces for the fi­nals. The win­ner will al­so re­ceive a front-line Car­ni­val cos­tume and beau­ty prod­ucts for a year.”

Lochan Dass added, “Plans are al­so in the mak­ing for a job place­ment pro­gramme for the crowned win­ner, which will al­low her to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go year-round, and not just at the in­ter­na­tion­al event. She will be­come a face, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for all our peo­ple in the glob­al space.”

The Miss World T&T rep­re­sen­ta­tive will al­so un­der­go train­ing in mod­el­ling, speech, me­dia, fit­ness, nu­tri­tion, pro­to­col, din­ing eti­quette and beau­ty from a host of top lo­cal coach­es and men­tors.

“We have part­nered with D. Ram­per­sad & Com­pa­ny for the Tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion, and Sa­lon Es­sen­tials will spon­sor the Miss Pho­to­genic prize. Both Tribe Car­ni­val and Sig­na­ture Col­lec­tion have agreed to spon­sor prizes to the top three girls.

“We are cur­rent­ly iden­ti­fy­ing spon­sors for oth­er cat­e­gories, in­clud­ing Fit­ness, Con­ge­nial­i­ty, and Top Mod­el. Toy­ota Trinidad & To­ba­go Lim­it­ed has al­so com­mit­ted sup­port to the ven­ture,” she added.

The cov­et­ed Miss World T&T Beau­ty with a Pur­pose (BWAP) seg­ment will get sup­port from a Gala Char­i­ty Din­ner, which is ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate fund­ing for a na­tion­al year long project to sup­port hu­man­i­tar­i­an work in lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties. The Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, through Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed (TTL), will al­so be part­ner­ing with the lo­cal fran­chise.

This year is ex­pect­ed to be one of the biggest events yet, with the lo­cal fi­nals card­ed for No­vem­ber 6 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA). Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML), as the ex­clu­sive me­dia spon­sor, has agreed to car­ry the fi­nals live on CNC3.

Lochan Dass added, “We al­ready have a num­ber of ex­clu­sive spon­sors like Flower Bar, Sacha Cos­met­ics, Lol­labees, Fit­ness Cen­tre, Kooties, The BRIX and oth­ers. Many top pho­tog­ra­phers and con­tent de­vel­op­ers such as Mil­len­ni­al Man­age­ment, a young en­ter­pris­ing group, are de­sign­ing the vir­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence.”

The next phase of the com­pe­ti­tion con­tin­ues on Sun­day (Au­gust 28) with Screen­ing at The Brix Au­to­graph Col­lec­tion in Cas­cade, with a cast­ing call cur­rent­ly in progress. Girls be­tween the ages 18 to 25 years are en­cour­aged to ap­ply, and the top 15 will be cho­sen to go through two months of fit­ness, speech, mod­el­ling and oth­er train­ing regimes be­fore the win­ner will be crowned.