In­nis Fran­cis

Arou­ca beau­ty queen and for­mer Miss T&T World 2019 rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tya Jané Ramey has been crowned the new Miss Uni­verse rep­re­sen­ta­tive to this coun­try.

Ramey, 24, was among 23 del­e­gates who com­pet­ed for the crown at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, on Sun­day.

The young women start­ed the jour­ney to the ti­tle in June and were part of an in­tense boot camp that fo­cused on the dif­fer­ent as­pects of the com­pe­ti­tion to earn points lead­ing to the fi­nal show.

Ramey, a chil­dren’s ser­vices as­so­ciate at the T&T Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, said her so­cial cause cam­paign is to work with chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties.

“I feel very strong­ly about it be­cause I re­alise that there are gaps that are miss­ing and it af­fects their en­tire lives from the way they are ed­u­cat­ed; to ac­cess health­care and I am hop­ing that my plat­form is go­ing to be as a voice to en­sure that I play an in­te­gral role in bridg­ing some of those gaps,” Ramey said.

The del­e­gates all rep­re­sent­ed a com­mu­ni­ty and pre­sent­ed the so­cial aware­ness ad­vo­ca­cy they planned to cham­pi­on.

They pa­rad­ed in ca­su­al dress­es, swim­suits and evening gowns.

New fran­chise hold­er and na­tion­al di­rec­tor of the Crowns and Sash­es Acad­e­my, Stephen Jones, ap­pealed to fi­nanciers to in­vest in the fu­ture of build­ing plat­forms for young women to strive. He said un­der his stew­ard­ship, he has the vi­sion to bring the com­pe­ti­tion to an im­proved lev­el.

Jones said: “We get to jour­ney with young women whose lives are so dy­nam­ic. They are pas­sion­ate, they bring their scares, hurts, dreams, pas­sions and we are but fa­cil­i­ta­tors of a process … my task is to bring a new spring­time of lead­er­ship in our con­tem­po­rary time … I am as­sured and I com­mit to you that when these 23 young women go back in­to the world, they’re com­ing back more re­fined, pas­sion­ate, and more ready to serve.”

He added: “So, I am ask­ing cor­po­ra­tions, fam­i­lies and em­ploy­ers, please give them a chance. Open the doors for them, write the cheques for them, put them on the bill­boards, and give them the mi­cro­phone so that they can be­come the new voice of our twin is­land, that’s the new spring­time of reach­ing that stage. I am ask­ing you to in­vest in Crowns and Sash­es be­cause of the work we are do­ing, you may not see the re­sults now but I promise you with your sup­port and those who trust us, that in a cou­ple of years T&T, they can’t touch we!”

Jones said his team is made up of 17 mem­bers who brought the pro­duc­tion to fruition.

Fol­low­ing Ramey’s fi­nal an­swer on the death of Queen Elize­beth II, she said her first or­der on at­tain­ing the ti­tle was to have a spir­i­tu­al in­ter­ven­tion with the oth­er young women from the show. She said it was the way they would be­gin and end all prac­tice ses­sions lead­ing up to the show.

The in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion is set to take place in No­vem­ber this year and she promis­es to re­turn with the Miss Uni­verse ti­tle.

The first and sec­ond run­ners-up were Aman­da Ameer­ali – Miss Diego Mar­tin and Tis­han­na Mitchelle – Miss St Au­gus­tine.