SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Great his­to­ry was made for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Afro-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty with the in­au­gur­al Miss Afro T&T 2026 pageant.

Host­ed by the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (MC­CD) un­der the theme Threads of Africa, Fab­ric of a Na­tion, the pageant’s jour­ney from its ini­tial phase through the semi­fi­nals, in­clud­ing a se­ries of spe­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, cul­mi­nat­ed in the fi­nal on Ju­ly 30 at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) in San Fer­nan­do.

Four­teen del­e­gates, who shone like Africa’s Great Star, the Cul­li­nan I di­a­mond, rep­re­sent­ed var­i­ous African coun­tries. How­ev­er, the pageant’s his­toric sig­nif­i­cance ex­tend­ed be­yond the ti­tle-hold­er, awardees and spe­cial ho­n­ourees.

Al­so mak­ing her mark in the pageant’s his­to­ry was award-win­ning so­pra­no and opera singer Le­An­dra Head who said per­form­ing at the in­au­gur­al event was an ho­n­our.

“I’m al­ways grate­ful when I have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to per­form,” Head said. “But be­ing there, in the very first year, was quite spe­cial, es­pe­cial­ly be­ing the on­ly fe­male vo­cal­ist. It was def­i­nite­ly an ho­n­our to even be con­sid­ered for the his­toric land­mark event.”

Un­der­stand­ing the im­por­tance of al­low­ing the del­e­gates to com­mand at­ten­tion dur­ing the pageant, Head en­sured her wardrobe did not com­pete with theirs. Nev­er­the­less, she com­mand­ed the stage in her own right, ap­pear­ing in a del­i­cate, re­gal roy­al-blue kaf­tan gown and per­form­ing Bob Mar­ley’s Re­demp­tion Song and Mari­ah Carey’s Hero.

The Miss Afro T&T 2026 ti­tle-hold­er, Best Evening Wear and Best in Tal­ent win­ner was Delice Ra­bathaly (Zim­bab­we).

Oth­er awardees in­clud­ed first run­ner-up and MC­CD Mu­sic Lega­cy Builder Brit­ney Smith (Sene­gal); sec­ond run­ner-up, Miss Pho­to­genic, Best in In­ter­view and Ex­pres­sions of a Na­tion win­ner Re­bec­ca Bap­tiste (Sey­chelles); Peo­ple’s Award win­ner An­gel Ros­ales (Kenya); Threads of Africa, Her­itage and Ris­ing Star win­ner Anayi­ka Boyke (De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of the Con­go); and Con­ge­nial­i­ty and MC­CD Ubun­tu award win­ner La­Toya Greaves (Ethiopia).

Head ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to all the del­e­gates and wished the pageant con­tin­ued suc­cess.