At just 18 years old, Gabrielle Si­mon is prepar­ing to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go on the re­gion­al stage as the coun­try’s del­e­gate to the Miss Caribbean Beau­ty and In­tel­li­gence Queen 2026 com­pe­ti­tion.

A state­ment from pageant di­rec­tor So­han Badall said this year marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for T&T, as it is the first year the coun­try is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Miss Caribbean Beau­ty and In­tel­li­gence Queen Show. The re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion, now en­ter­ing on­ly its sec­ond year, pro­vides a plat­form for young Caribbean women to show­case beau­ty, in­tel­li­gence, cul­ture, tal­ent and lead­er­ship.

The state­ment said Gabrielle will com­pete along­side sev­en del­e­gates from across the Caribbean for the cov­et­ed 2026 ti­tle.

The state­ment de­scribed Gabrielle as a pas­sion­ate per­former and young am­bas­sador who has spent most of her life de­vel­op­ing her tal­ents in dance, gym­nas­tics, ath­let­ics and the per­form­ing arts. Raised by her sin­gle moth­er in San Juan, her jour­ney be­gan at the age of three when she start­ed danc­ing as an ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ty at Lit­tle An­gels Preschool.

At four years old, she ex­pand­ed her tal­ents through gym­nas­tics with Team­work Gym­nas­tics. Her ded­i­ca­tion took her be­yond T&T, as she rep­re­sent­ed both the or­gan­i­sa­tion and her coun­try at the Gas­par­il­la Gym­nas­tics Clas­sics in 2014 and 2015.

It said her artis­tic jour­ney con­tin­ued with New Cre­ation Pro­duc­tions, where she re­ceived train­ing in bal­let, folk and con­tem­po­rary dance. Af­ter eight years in the ath­let­ic field, Gabrielle tran­si­tioned her fo­cus to­ward stage per­for­mance, dis­cov­er­ing an even deep­er pas­sion for en­ter­tain­ing and con­nect­ing with au­di­ences.

Her com­mit­ment to per­son­al de­vel­op­ment ex­tend­ed in­to her aca­d­e­m­ic life. Dur­ing her years at El So­cor­ro North Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and Bish­op Anstey High School East, Gabrielle suc­cess­ful­ly bal­anced her stud­ies with an im­pres­sive range of ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing track, swim­ming, foot­ball, gym­nas­tics, cheer­lead­ing and dance.

The state­ment said Gabrielle’s pas­sion for T&T’s cul­ture was fur­ther strength­ened through her men­tor­ship un­der Gre­gor Breedy at the San Juan South Cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion, where she re­mained an ac­tive mem­ber from 2017 to 2025.

Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, she per­formed at ma­jor cul­tur­al events, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion and Car­ifes­ta 2019, among nu­mer­ous oth­er pro­duc­tions.

It said Gabrielle con­tin­ues to de­vel­op as a per­former with Twin Inc Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny, owned by De­on and Ian Bap­tiste, where she is ex­plor­ing mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary dance while al­so ex­pand­ing her reper­toire in­to dance­hall and hip-hop.

Be­yond the stage, Gabrielle hopes to use her plat­form to en­cour­age young women to em­brace self-ex­pres­sion, con­fi­dence and in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty.

Her par­tic­i­pa­tion in Miss Caribbean Beau­ty and In­tel­li­gence Queen 2026 there­fore rep­re­sents more than a pageant ap­pear­ance. It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Gabrielle to share her sto­ry, show­case her tal­ents and proud­ly in­tro­duce a new gen­er­a­tion of Caribbean rep­re­sen­ta­tion from T&T.

T&T’s par­tic­i­pa­tion is be­ing led by pageant di­rec­tor So­han Badall, who is call­ing on the pub­lic to ral­ly be­hind Gabrielle as she em­barks on this his­toric first ap­pear­ance for the coun­try in the com­pe­ti­tion.