Shas­tri Boodan

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Trinidad and To­ba­go has cap­tured an­oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al pageant ti­tle, af­ter lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tive Leeann Dass took the Woman of the Uni­verse Elite 2026 in South Ko­rea on Wednes­day.

Dass rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the 47th Woman of the Uni­verse In­ter­na­tion­al Pageant, com­pet­ing against ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 del­e­gates from around the world.

She emerged as the over­all in­ter­na­tion­al win­ner, se­cur­ing one of three ma­jor ti­tles award­ed at the com­pe­ti­tion. The pageant fea­tured both Miss and Mrs cat­e­gories, with the oth­er top ti­tles be­ing Miss Woman of the Uni­verse and Mrs Woman of the Uni­verse.

In ad­di­tion to her over­all vic­to­ry, Dass won the Best Na­tion­al Cos­tume Award, pro­vid­ing an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case T&T’s cul­ture, her­itage and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

Her achieve­ments ex­tend­ed be­yond the pageant, as she was al­so se­lect­ed as an am­bas­sador for a South Ko­re­an skin­care brand.

De­scrib­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence as every­thing she had imag­ined an in­ter­na­tion­al pageant would be and more yes­ter­day, Dass said, “Win­ning a beau­ty pageant is some­thing I nev­er imag­ined my­self do­ing, but I de­cid­ed to step out of my com­fort zone and chal­lenge my­self. In every­thing I do, I give it my all and thank­ful­ly I was suc­cess­ful.

“It was an amaz­ing and un­for­get­table ex­pe­ri­ence that chal­lenged me, em­pow­ered me, and gave me so many won­der­ful mem­o­ries with oth­er del­e­gates from around the world, women em­pow­er­ing and sup­port­ing each oth­er through this jour­ney was def­i­nite­ly one thing that stood out the most to me. If I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do it all over again, I ab­solute­ly would!”

She added, “For me, tak­ing this ti­tle is not just about bring­ing home the crown but about rep­re­sent­ing my coun­try and show­ing the women of Trinidad and To­ba­go that any­thing is pos­si­ble with de­ter­mi­na­tion and ded­i­ca­tion. Nev­er give up. Be­lieve in your dreams, stay ground­ed in faith and have the courage to pur­sue them. I hope my jour­ney re­minds oth­ers that where you be­gin does not lim­it how far you can go.”

Dass said the jour­ney had been an in­cred­i­ble one and ex­pressed ex­cite­ment about re­turn­ing home with the in­ter­na­tion­al ti­tle. She be­lieves the vic­to­ry will open new doors both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly, while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to fur­ther de­vel­op her ca­reer.

Na­tion­al di­rec­tor Alvea­da Meah, who holds the Woman of the Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go and Mrs Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go fran­chis­es, said Dass’ vic­to­ry rep­re­sents a ma­jor mile­stone for the lo­cal fran­chise.

Ac­cord­ing to Meah, the achieve­ment brings greater in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion to the Woman of the Uni­verse T&T fran­chise and demon­strates the abil­i­ty of lo­cal del­e­gates to com­pete suc­cess­ful­ly on the world stage.

Dass is sched­uled to re­turn to T&T to­mor­row fol­low­ing her his­toric vic­to­ry in South Ko­rea.