| Subject: Anya's challenges (First Interview) |
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John (Web Master)
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Date Posted: Sunday, March 16, 09:41:52pm
Author Host/IP: c-68-80-75-150.hsd1.pa.comcast.net/68.80.75.150
By Cedriann J Martin
Saturday, March 8th 2008
Miss T&T Universe Anya Ayoung-Chee Location: Toco Clothes & Accessories: Peter Elias Shoes: Shoe Frenzy Hair: Bally Makeup: Sandra Hordatt Styling: Peter Elias Models: Anya Ayoung-Chee & Gabrielle Walcott. Photography: Calvin French
Asked what aspect of her preparation would devour the most attention during the four-month sprint to Miss Universe 2008, Anya Ayoung Chee gives a surprising response.
"I think I have to be a bit more relaxed," she says, all mellow. " And not so concerned all the time about saying the right thing and doing the right thing."
Weird. Because it occurs to me from the very start of our chat over ginger-ginseng tea that this Miss Trinidad and Tobago is so relaxed and not concerned about saying the right thing.
Her self-possession leaves even more of an impression than her glossy hair or the floor length, pink and purple dress she wore to work that day. (The 26-year-old is Design Manager at Above, a multi-disciplinary design studio. Hence the creative freedom.)
Anya is interesting in quite a few unexpected and refreshing ways. Consider her take on why she was selected as our representative for Miss Universe in Vietnam in the first place.
The dynamic duo , Miss T&T Universe Anya Ayoung-Chee and Miss T&T World Gabrielle Walcott
"I genuinely feel I've come into it for the right reasons" selflessly. I'm not focused on advancing my career in a direct way. I come into this with a deep devotion to Trinidad and Tobago and to its development. When you do things for the right purpose" she says "it is always fruitful".
There's another reason she signed up for the job: her late brother, Pilar. Last May he passed away in a car crash that took five lives, including those of three of his closest friends. Anya has managed to spin tragedy into inspiration.
"When something like this happens you realise that life is finite. He was a very intense boy and he always expected perfection from my brothers and me. In his death it feels like it's my duty to not settle for what I could get away with. I really feel like I had the spirit of my brother with me. It would have meant so much to him that I would challenge myself in that way," she reflects.Â
Her knack for distilling disaster into good is genetic. Following the death her parents formed the I Remember Movement, an organisation in Pilar's remembrance. Still in its formative stages, the group will give young people of their children's generation an opportunity to give back.
And after another of their five sons was kidnapped five years ago they came up with the Tall Man Foundation, an arts program for Gonzales teens. Tall Man offers classes in drama, dance, film and the like to young people who wouldn't otherwise access that kind of training at school or in their community.
They performed at Queen's Hall for the pre-show of 3Canal's "Light" during Carnival. And both Anya and Gabrielle went along last week as the children hosted a walk-about in their area to encourage their peers to come onboard.
"It was their idea to walk. They wanted to go out in the streets and speak directly to their peers... to tell them: 'this is an option for you too'," she tells me. She reveals that the work of the Foundation is woven into their daily lives and is her parents' kind response to an unkind act.
"It was their way of trying to direct the experience out of themselves and into a process that would maybe change the course of the lives of young men who may have wound up doing something like this to somebody else," she says. "They are not nearly the only people out there doing this kind of thing. It's so inspiring to be around them and around the people they're drawn to."
If anything, Anya thinks her parents' legacy to their brood of six is compassion.
The only girl and the oldest, Anya decided against following her father into medicine. She once contemplated it. Oncology, especially, intrigued her.
"I studied biology, chemistry and art at A Levels," she recalls of her St. Joseph's years. "But when it came down to it I thought that doing medicine wouldn't challenge me enough. I don't mean that in an arrogant way. But the side of me that is creative needed much more development than the analytical side. I figured I could probably beat the books and get through med school."
She decided instead to attend Parsons, a prestigious design school in Manhattan. Initially Anya intended to pursue fashion. She opted for graphic design in a bid for viable career options when she returned home. It's become her passion. She now works with a studio that provides services in branding, web applications and photography.
The sometimes Meiling model is in talks to team with the iconic fashion designer for a younger line. And she relished styling 3Canal's Carnival show. Anya's long-term vision is to incorporate as many different veins of design into a career rather than focusing on one specific branch.
"I also want to be grounded in projects that are ethical. In that way the work becomes so much more than work. Ideally I want to be in a position where I can not only choose the discipline but also the direction," she explains.
Her immediate challenge, though, is finding and being herself in the beauty pageant experience.
Being yourself... beauty pageant. Sounds like a contradiction. Anya explains why for Miss T&T it isn't.
"I think our Miss Universe and Miss World committee is a little unique. There are countries that produce a bit more of a tailored delegate. You always hear about girls who have been training all their lives for the pageant. But I think Miss T&T's edge is that she is a genuine article. Wendy was Wendy and that was a big reason why she won. For me,"she says, "this represents an opportunity to come more to terms with who I am."
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