Sto­ry and Pho­tos

by Rishi Ra­goonath

Six tal­ent­ed young girls will grace the stage on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 17, as they com­pete for the ti­tle of Lit­tle Miss Pleas­antville Queen 2026 at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

Rep­re­sent­ing com­mu­ni­ties from across Trinidad, the con­tes­tants are Amaya Har­vey of Plai­sance Park, Fo­lasade Brien of Pleas­antville, Heav­en Rouse of Clax­ton Bay, Ar­i­an­na Sandy of Aripero, Janay Bernard of Barataria, and Emil­iana Lawrence of Co­coyea.

The pageant is de­signed to be more than a show­case of beau­ty, with the con­tes­tants’ train­ing aimed at de­vel­op­ing their con­fi­dence, com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, and stage pres­ence.

As part of their prepa­ra­tion, the young par­tic­i­pants will re­ceive guid­ance in pub­lic speak­ing, mod­el­ling and stage walk­ing, tal­ent pre­sen­ta­tion, evening-gown pre­sen­ta­tion, man­ners and eti­quette.

The con­tes­tants will be eval­u­at­ed in five cat­e­gories: In­tro­duc­to­ry Speech, Spir­it of Pleas­antville Wear, Tal­ent, Evening Gown and In­ter­view. The In­ter­view seg­ment will be pre-judged.

Pageant di­rec­tor Aaliyah Lewis said the event was cre­at­ed for a pur­pose be­yond crown­ing a win­ner.

“This is the first year of the pageant, and the aim of the show is More than just crown­ing a queen; we’re fos­ter­ing pride, con­fi­dence, and fu­ture lead­er­ship.”

Lewis said the pageant is in­tend­ed to pro­vide the con­tes­tants with valu­able skills and ex­pe­ri­ences that will ben­e­fit them well be­yond the com­pe­ti­tion.

“The Lit­tle Miss Pleas­antville Pageant 2026 goes be­yond com­pe­ti­tion; it acts as a plat­form to nur­ture young girls, help­ing them de­vel­op con­fi­dence, poise, grace, and lead­er­ship skills while fos­ter­ing a strong sense of Pleas­antville pride via ded­i­cat­ed train­ing.”

She added that the con­tes­tants are al­ready work­ing to strength­en a range of per­son­al and per­for­mance skills.

“The par­tic­i­pants are cur­rent­ly de­vel­op­ing skills like pub­lic speak­ing, mod­el­ling, man­ners, and eti­quette, as­sets they will car­ry life­long. A holis­tic ap­proach to pageantry.”

With weeks of prepa­ra­tion be­hind them, the six con­tes­tants are ex­pect­ed to bring their in­di­vid­ual per­son­al­i­ties, tal­ents, and con­fi­dence to the stage as they vie for the in­au­gur­al Lit­tle Miss Pleas­antville crown.