Bringing Joy to the youth

The 24-year-old auditor with Ernst & Young was crowned on November 5 at the Trade Winds Hotel in San Fernando.

Simpli Smooth is the franchise and pageant owner of the Miss City of San Fernando Pageant.

"The pageant has gained significant growth and development over the years. We have seen former queens excel in academics locally and abroad. Past queens have also gone on to represent Trinidad and Tobago in international pageants," Deron said.

"The pageant upholds the development of young people in the area and is more about intellect than looks. We try to impart and impact on San Fernando’s history and environment."

Because of this outlook, there is a lot involved in being Miss City of San Fernando. After the pageant itself, the queen has many guest appearances to make as well as community work.

Joachim’s pet project will be her alma mater, Mon Repos RC School, which has fell into a state of disrepair.

The pageant co-ordinators have also established a platform for community service and projects.

This includes canned food drives where food is given to homes in San Fernando and a walkathon.

Money from the walkathon goes to setting up programmes for the youths such as the up-coming Youth Forum.

One of the more prominent ventures is "Events for Women" which brings to light issues that affects youths.

The Annual Youth Forum will take place at the Creative Arts Centre in San Fernando on Thursday.

There, 150 to 250 secondary school students from the south will come together to discuss issues in society.

This year, Joachim chose the topic "Human Interaction in a Volatile Society" as she believes human interaction is very important to youths because it forms the basis for things such as peer pressure, crime and sexually-transmitted diseases. She is the spokesperson and planner for these events.

"We live in a multi-tasking society so this is a training in time management, public speaking, event planning and more," said Attzs.

At the Jazz Festival on San Fernando Hill last November, Joachim had the opportunity to talk about the hill and inform people about its history.

She also attended the Barbados Fashion Week where she was delighted to, not only represent the city of San Fernando, but TT.

"It takes a lot of work and support from my family, friends and sponsors to pull off these events," Joachim pointed out. She is very thankful to the partners at Ernst & Young for being so supportive and for allowing her time off to carry out her duties.

"Since we believe intellect is so important one of our prizes was a scholarship to do her Masters in Business Management from Keith Mc Donald’s Higher Learning and Consultancy," said Attzs.

"We wanted the queen to have much more to take with her than simply a year of being Miss City of San Fernando."

Other prizes include vouchers from Nigel Khan, Charcell Clothes Store, Designer Look, JC Shoe Store and more. She also gets to play mas with Owen Hinds — altogether receiving $50,000 in prizes.

On City Day Joachim visited schools in San Fernando and realised that as the reigning queen, many of the students look up to her.

She was very inspired and this reaction stirred her to try to inspire, encourage and improve young people also.

Joachim who is one of the main dancers in her church group, told of being stopped by a woman in Port-of-Spain once who enquired: "Are you Miss San Fernando?" When she responded, the woman said: "My daughter wants to be just like you."

Joy then realised the power she had to influence the youth, change their mind-set and in the long-run, help improve San Fernando.

If anyone wishes to write to Joy or find out more about the pageant visit the website at www.misscityofsanfernandopageant.8m.com.