New Miss Global Jamaica Kimone Carty preps for world stage

Twenty-seven-year-old Kimone Carty from Clarendon has been crowned the new Miss Global Jamaica in a grand coronation show held last Saturday at the Spanish Court Hotel in Kingston.

Now being passed the crown from Miss Global Jamaica 2019, Brithney Clarke, who is now an organiser of the pageant, Carty told The Gleaner that though she has been successful in the competition, pageantry had never really been something she considered before dreaming about becoming a contestant.

“I was in China last year and while I was there, I was planning to come home. Thinking about leaving a foreign country to come back to Jamaica, everybody asked why I would do that. It was strange but then I had a dream that I was in a pageant and pageantry was never really on my mind. However, I decided that when I come home, I [needed] to be in a pageant,” she explained, sharing why she entered the competition.

“So, I came back home in February, and I saw the ad that Miss Global Jamaica was auditioning for the competition, and I thought this was another sign that this was the pageant I should be entering so I went ahead and joined,” Carty continued.

Beyond the dream she had, she knew a pageant was the perfect platform for her to advocate for her cause which looks at turning recycled material into clothing. Nevertheless, the journey to victory was not very smooth as she had to find a way to quickly adjust to being back home after living and teaching English in China for four years.

“The journey started out where I was like ‘oh wow I am in this’. Then I remember one day Jermaine Dyer said to me ‘you need to realise you’re in this competition’ so I think like transitioning in terms of coming home and then immediately getting into something this big was the biggest hurdle. I had to realise this was something I was really doing,” she shared.

Carty said that having to rely on her own strength on navigating unknown territory was another challenge but certainly one she welcomed.

“You get to learn new things, because being in a new space you wonder if you can really do this and become self-motivated. You have to put aside personal problems and just focus,” she said.

Currently, she is preparing herself mentally for the next leg of the competition, which is the Miss Global International Pageant. But as she looks back at her time over the last several weeks of the contest thus far, the bonds most cherished are the ones she formed with fellow contestants.

“It was so much fun meeting all of the ladies. We started out as strangers and then by the end of the pageant we became friends. We are all pretty close in a way. Each of us had something in common or we had our own little social network group in a sense,” Carty said.

This year Jamaica is the host country for Miss Global International. According to Neelam Ramchandani who is currently the organiser of the international pageant, they have begun preparations for the event.

“Planning has been going really well. We are really excited and in the process of getting some sponsors on board right now. Last year the competition was hosted in Peru because we had a challenge with sponsorship but we are happy to be able to host this year,” she told The Gleaner.

Miss Global International focuses on Uniting the World Through Beauty and Tourism and has been around for 15 years.

“It used to be called Miss Commonwealth Jamaica and it used to be just the Commonwealth countries that we were able to [enter]. But because of the recognition it got internationally, and other countries wanting to come on board, we moved it to global. We invite girls from all over the world. We have directors in over 30 countries,” she explained.

Karla Ruiz from Mexico is current title holder for Miss Global International.

aaliyah.cunningham@gleanerjm.com