Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Mrs In­dia World­wide is a renowned beau­ty pageant that cel­e­brates the strength, con­fi­dence, and achieve­ments of mar­ried women from around the world.

This pageant pro­vides a plat­form for women to show­case their tal­ents, in­tel­li­gence, and cul­tur­al val­ues while al­so pro­mot­ing per­son­al de­vel­op­ment and com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment.

Par­tic­i­pants com­pete in var­i­ous seg­ments, in­clud­ing tra­di­tion­al wear, tal­ent, and in­ter­view rounds, to win the pres­ti­gious ti­tle. The event em­pha­sis­es per­son­al growth and em­pow­er­ment, en­cour­ag­ing con­tes­tants to em­brace their in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty and make a pos­i­tive im­pact in their com­mu­ni­ties.

Win­ners of Mrs In­dia In­ter­na­tion­al of­ten gain op­por­tu­ni­ties to rep­re­sent their coun­try on glob­al stages, fur­ther­ing their in­flu­ence and in­spir­ing oth­ers.

The com­pe­ti­tion’s age lim­it of 50 years old al­lows a broad range of vi­able con­tes­tants to en­ter and com­pete.

Su-Ann Joseph-Mout­tet, T&T’s con­tes­tant and the even­tu­al win­ner of the 2024 in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion, saw the ad­ver­tise­ment for the com­pe­ti­tion on­line and, at 45 years old, felt that this was her op­por­tu­ni­ty to try new things.

“So I en­tered, not ex­pect­ing any­thing, and it turns out I was ac­cept­ed!” Her hus­band was ex­treme­ly sup­port­ive of her when she de­cid­ed to en­ter the pageant and took care of their four-year-old son while she pre­pared for the show.

The lo­cal pageant’s na­tion­al di­rec­tor, Ms Ne­ha Ka­ri­na, helped en­cour­age Joseph-Mout­tet and build her con­fi­dence dur­ing the lo­cal leg, as she gained ex­pe­ri­ence for the first time in the mod­el­ling world.

Laugh­ing that her on­ly pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence in mod­el­ling was at a UWI fash­ion show dur­ing her uni­ver­si­ty years, Joseph-Mout­tet mar­vels at how far she has come, ini­tial­ly hav­ing doubts about her­self, to win­ning the pageant among con­tes­tants from all over the world.

Born and raised “in hum­ble be­gin­nings” as one of eight chil­dren in Man­zanil­la, Joseph-Mout­tet went to North East­ern Sec­ondary School and then on­to UWI, St Au­gus­tine, where she pur­sued phar­ma­cy stud­ies and grad­u­at­ed with ho­n­ours.

Af­ter she fin­ished uni­ver­si­ty, she moved to Spain, where she worked in the busi­ness sec­tor, and as a re­sult, be­came ful­ly bilin­gual. Up­on re­turn­ing to T&T, she re­turned to the phar­ma­cy sec­tor as the phar­ma­cy man­ag­er for Su­per­Pharm, where she re­mained for five years.

At present, she is now the Re­gion­al Co­or­di­na­tor for Phar­ma­cy at the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA). As part of the ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment, Joseph-Mout­tet is in charge of the phar­ma­cy di­vi­sions in all health cen­tres and hos­pi­tals in the North Cen­tral di­vi­sion.

Dur­ing the course of her train­ing for the pageant, Joseph-Mout­tet learnt com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills and pageant walk­ing, par­tic­i­pat­ed in cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties, and be­came ac­quaint­ed with the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs).

Joseph-Mout­tet’s plat­form for the pageant was based on SDG 3, Health and Well­be­ing, and she be­came an ad­vo­cate for women’s men­tal health, with a spe­cial fo­cus on post­par­tum anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion. As she is part of the health in­dus­try lo­cal­ly and al­so suf­fered with her own bat­tle with post­par­tum anx­i­ety for three years, she be­came acute­ly aware of the lack of sup­port sys­tems in place for women.

Af­ter three years of suf­fer­ing in si­lence, she vis­it­ed a psy­chi­a­trist, and “in six months I was al­ready 85 per cent bet­ter than I was be­fore.” Her role in the pageant has giv­en her a re­newed sense of in­de­pen­dence and con­fi­dence, which she hopes to share with oth­er women.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Joseph-Mout­tet has two oth­er ma­jor caus­es that she us­es her plat­form to ad­vo­cate for.

To­geth­er with the Na­tion­al Di­rec­tor of the pageant, she has al­so honed in on cli­mate change aware­ness, in­volv­ing and en­cour­ag­ing pri­ma­ry school-age chil­dren to make dif­fer­ences that can sup­port the fight against glob­al warm­ing.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the pres­i­dent of the T&T Chap­ter of Dis­abled Per­sons, she has be­gun con­cep­tu­al­is­ing a fash­ion show for dis­abled peo­ple to show­case fash­ions that they can eas­i­ly wear.

“This will em­pow­er the par­ents and dis­abled per­sons to make de­ci­sions on things that may be con­sid­ered sim­ple for abled per­sons, but can be a chal­lenge for them.”

Joseph-Mout­tet shares her beau­ty se­crets, which keep her look­ing youth­ful at 45. “Aside from good ge­net­ics, I try to main­tain a youth­ful ap­pear­ance by keep­ing ac­tive, go­ing to the gym, and try­ing to have a bal­anced di­et.”

She stress­es the im­por­tance of a rou­tine of re­mov­ing make-up and cleans­ing the face at night and a morn­ing rou­tine that al­ways in­cludes ap­ply­ing sun­screen and very sim­ple make-up for a fresh look. Al­though many women think they need heav­ier make-up looks to be beau­ti­ful and glam­orous, she sug­gests that those heavy make-up looks af­fect the skin’s health.

In terms of her fash­ion sense, she fo­cus­es on a classy and el­e­gant style but some­times ad­mits she likes to throw in some el­e­ments to “look sexy and orig­i­nal.” Her ad­vice to young women, ac­knowl­edg­ing the im­pact and in­flu­ence of so­cial me­dia to look a cer­tain way, is to “al­ways be orig­i­nal.”

She cred­its stay­ing true to her­self “with the at­ti­tude of glam­our” as the way she won Mrs In­dia World­wide, keep­ing her Tri­ni ac­cent and di­alect strong, and be­ing au­then­tic to her­self. She al­so en­cour­ages young women to dis­cov­er and fo­cus on their strengths, as “once you’re do­ing what you’re good at, you will al­ways en­joy it.”

Af­ter be­ing in­volved in an ac­ci­dent where she was hit by a car, re­sult­ing in the dis­fig­u­ra­tion of her face and a bro­ken clav­i­cle, Joseph-Mout­tet re­mem­bers hav­ing sig­nif­i­cant in­se­cu­ri­ties in sec­ondary school.

Dur­ing her teenage years, she fo­cused on her aca­d­e­m­ic work and delved in­to her stud­ies as a com­fort.

“Now look where I am; I am the win­ner of Mrs In­dia World­wide In­ter­na­tion­al Pageant. This proves that what I went through as a young girl mould­ed me in­to the woman I am to­day. I went through my teenage years think­ing I was ug­ly, but I know I’m not ug­ly now. Wher­ev­er you are in the mo­ment, see the sil­ver lin­ing and try to make the best out of it.”

Us­ing her plat­form as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to oth­ers’ lives, she has found true hap­pi­ness in be­ing an ex­am­ple for young women that brav­ery and con­fi­dence can over­come even the most deep-seat­ed in­se­cu­ri­ties.