Redefining beauty standards

YOU can say that Athaliah Samuel personifies taking a negative and making it into a positive. In 2012, when she was chosen as Miss World Trinidad and Tobago, Samuel faced harsh and, mainly, negative criticism, not only about how she looked but where she came from, John John, Laventille.

The comments were documented in media, locally and regionally. A July 2012 Jamaica Observer article quoted one blogger on trinituner.com saying, “No offense to the new Miss World Trinidad and Tobago — overall she is the ugliest representative I have ever seen…Trinidad is out for a huge embarrassment. She is unattractive, dried-up and hard looking.”

But six years later, Samuel knows that she has become a household name. She has moved beyond runways and beauty pageants to become an entrepreneur as well as a mentor to many of TT’s youth.

After being retrenched from Government Information Services Limited (GISL) also known as TV 4, Samuel was not able to find another job but said she is “still try to lean on the positive side of things.” This attitude provided the springboard for her to “look into the many things that I have been doing for many years on the sideline and turning them into businesses.”

One of the Samuel’s entrepreneurial ventures is Afrodesiack, her swimwear line launched five years ago. Her designs were shown for the first time at this year’s Qurux Africa, for which she is also the face of the event.

She said, “As a young black woman seeking to do fashion, it is one of the toughest things you can say you are joining because it is an industry where it requires a lot of money, a lot of travelling, a lot of advertising, a lot of marketing/branding, you name it.”

Through her line, Samuel has been able to create employment for the people in her community in an economy where many are unemployed.

“I don’t sew, I have people sewing for me. I can draw, I can design anything that I want. I see colours, I see movement of the material...”

Besides Afrodesiack, she has her own runway school called House of Tizrah; an NGO, Athaliah and Friends Foundation where she does “a lot of motivational speaking” at schools; she is a health and wellness trainer; and will soon add TV host to her list of projects.

She said achieving all these things gives her the chance to change the negative perceptions and stereotypes with which she has battled.

She recently spoke at a camp for obese children run by To’ren Healthcare Consultancy. “They called me to speak on behalf of just coming from Laventille and just being that light and how to never give up. That camp in particular is for overweight kids, and it was really enlightening to know that they took my story and used it as their positive for them to lose weight.”

She used her example of being called names like “ugly” to show “whereby everyone thought I was ugly, I am now showing them, my ugly is beautiful... in my eyes.”

Samuel wants people to know that so many people from Laventille are actually doing regular things like in any other community. “We go to school we study, we work hard, we sacrifice, we do everything like everybody else and it is the same thing I try to show them with their health and wellness,” she added.

The full-time student at the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTAATT) is currently in the last two semesters of her Mass Communications degree and still faces some negativity because of where she comes from. At times, gang warfare and crime in the area kept Samuel away from school, but her drive to succeed is so strong that nothing can keep her from success.

With crime being a major issue in areas like Laventille, Samuel believes while she and others like her are not a part of it, it has a negative effect on everyone.

She recently lost her stepbrother and neighbour to gang warfare, and while she intends to continue doing all she can to “shine light” in the area, it does at times, “drain my whole system, mentally.”

“I feel like I am going backwards. Every time I do one thing to highlight something good, it always feels like that just pulls me back and I end up with a drained feeling. But there is no giving up, really,” she said.

The same stick-to-itiveness she showed as a Miss World representative is the same approach to she takes to this situation and to life.

She has helped her mother, Gail Samuel, and others with activities for the community’s youth such on John John Day, July 29. A pageant was held on the day and Samuel assisted with the pageant’s rehearsals.

While these are some of the approaches Samuel has taken to “shine light” in the community, she believes that crime is something “the Government should put to rest.”

Asked her thoughts on continuous crime in the area, Samuel said, “When we think about who we are hurting, we hurt no one else but everyone else in the community. Most of these young men are related to each other in some form or fashion...some of them were taken in and taken care of by somebody.”

Many of the area’s children, Samuel said, are doing well but “the person who gets shot in the head makes bigger news than the child who is doing well. That to me is killing who we are as a people.”

She added that so many talents are being wasted because some people don’t even want to send their children outside and some people aren’t hired because of the stigma attached to the community.

But Samuel is not giving up. Although she was supposed to do a book drive this year through the Athaliah and Friends Foundation, she was unable to do so because of the economy, but will instead sponsor two children with their school supplies.

Shel wants to continue shining her light through other ventures like her model camp, which she hopes to get off the ground next year.

The camp, she said, should have been launched this year but a lot of the children were unable to afford the things they needed to get, such as shoes.

Samuel also plans to start her own TV programme. The show, which is currently a social media programme, is being rebranded and she hopes will be on TV one day. But she is a host on TV6’s Sisterhood.

She said she still has the backing of many who supported her during the Miss World pageant, although they too have been hit by a hard economy. She also plans to have her own fashion event in TT which she she intends to launch in the first week of January. At the two-part fashion event, she will launch Monday wear and her next swimwear collection.

Always redefining the standards of beauty, Samuel plans to have plus-sized models at this event.

“Someone asked me the other day, ‘what can’t you do’ and I said ‘I can’t swim.’ That is probably the only thing I can’t do because I had a bad experience when I was younger. But everything else I see and I try to the best of my ability and I recognise I can do it.”

“I don’t ever say I can’t do it. If I can’t do something, it is because it is not in TT to do or I don’t have the money to do it. Once it is attainable I am going to do it,” she said with a chuckle.