Nikeisha Garrette crowned Miss Global International TT

Trinidad and Tobago will host the 2025 Miss Global International competition, pageant founder and chairman Latchman Ramchandani has said.

Ramchandani made the announcement at the crowning of the Miss Global International TT leg of the competition at the Southern Academy of the Performing Arts (SAPA) on June 23.

Nikeisha Garrette walked away with the title. In second place was Kellisha Balkaran, a 16-year-old small business entrepreneur from Arima, and also a school student awaiting her CSEC results. Aliyah Ali was adjudged the third-place winner.

This is the second beauty pageant title Garrette has copped within two months. She is the Miss Point Fortin Borough Queen 2024, having won the competition on April 27.

“If it's nice, you do it twice,” she said after being crowned. “It feels amazing.

"The organisers of the Point Fortin Borough Queen competition have put a hold on my duties so I can represent TT on an international platform.”

A radiographer II at the Point Fortin Hospital, Garrette, who is also doing her masters in hospital management, dominated the competition from among the six delegates. She was loudly applauded as she made her first entrance in the Carnival costume category, dancing on stilts. She confessed to learning this moko-jumbie craft in one day and honing her skills over a three-day period, just for the competition.

Garrette also stood out in the swimsuit category, draped in a TT flag, and the talent segment, in which she incorporated East Indian and African influences in dance.

In the intelligence segment, Garrette, the daughter of a police officer, gained points for the position she articulated on the advantages and disadvantages of granting firearms user's licences for self-preservation.

Garrette will represent TT in the Miss Global International Competition, which will see delegates from some 40 countries, in the Cayman Island in October 2025.

Ramchandani, who was born in Myanmar, but has lived in Jamaica for 58 years, said the competition, now in its 20th year, was originally called the Miss Commonwealth Pageant. Overwhelming support from non-Commonwealth countries led to a name change.

His involvement in beauty pageants spans over 30 years and he has been instrumental in both the Miss Jamaica World and Universe pageants.

In a brief interview with the media after the competition, Ramchandani said before the show he was approximately 65 per cent certain about TT hosting the show.

On the insistence of director Neha Karina on bringing more international shows to these shores, and after having witnessed the competition, he said he became totally convinced the show will be held in TT in 2025.