Ryan Ba­choo

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Over 50 women be­gan the jour­ney to be­come the next Miss World T&T yes­ter­day - a jour­ney that, for the suc­cess­ful can­di­date, will lead them to rep­re­sent­ing this coun­try at Miss World 2023 pageant.

Tal­ent from across every part of the coun­try showed up at the Brix Ho­tel in Cas­cade for the screen­ing hop­ing to move on to the fi­nal, which takes place on No­vem­ber 6 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA).

Un­der the stew­ard­ship of the na­tion­al di­rec­tor Charu Lochan Dass, the Brix was buzzing with ac­tiv­i­ty, with the prospec­tive can­di­dates hop­ing to do enough to make the grand fi­nale.

Lochan Dass told Guardian Me­dia, “We’re look­ing for this spe­cial some­one who can rep­re­sent T&T on an in­ter­na­tion­al plat­form - some­body who recog­nis­es this pageant and this Beau­ty with a Pur­pose project is so much big­ger.

"It’s all about hu­man­i­tar­i­an work, char­i­ties and giv­ing back to your com­mu­ni­ties and some­body who un­der­stands you have to rep­re­sent our peo­ple on an in­ter­na­tion­al plat­form. You must be in love with our cul­ture and our peo­ple and un­der­stand our his­to­ry. You have to take all of this to the world.”

She not­ed that T&T has a rich his­to­ry in send­ing strong con­tenders to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion and they were look­ing to con­tin­ue that trend.

Al­so present at the screen­ing was 1986 Miss World Giselle Laronde-West, who said she was im­pressed by what she saw.

Laronde-West re­flect­ed on how far the com­pe­ti­tion has pro­gressed, telling Guardian Me­dia that so­cial me­dia had made it even more in­ter­est­ing.

Jea­nine Brandt, Miss World T&T 2022, along with Danielle Wal­cott, Miss World T&T 2016, were al­so present to sup­port the con­tes­tants.

Dr Kar­ri­an Hep­burn Mal­colm, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Guardian Me­dia, sat on the pan­el as one of the judges.

Guardian Me­dia is the of­fi­cial me­dia part­ner of Miss World T&T and Dr Hep­burn Mal­colm said giv­en its his­to­ry and im­por­tance to this coun­try, the or­gan­i­sa­tion had no choice but to help push the lo­cal ladies with more ex­po­sure.

“When you think of the kind of vis­i­bil­i­ty it gives them, the kinds of con­nec­tions, the op­por­tu­ni­ties and the lega­cy they can cre­ate for them­selves, as well as the type of im­pact they can have on their com­mu­ni­ties and on the coun­try, it’s mind bog­gling,” she said.

Hep­burn Mal­com added, “Even if they do not win the ul­ti­mate crown, from the mo­ment they en­ter the pageant they start get­ting that ex­po­sure on mul­ti­me­dia plat­forms, so they will im­me­di­ate­ly start reap­ing some of the ben­e­fits sim­ply by ap­ply­ing and be­com­ing a con­tes­tant.”