Miss World 2019 Toni-Ann Singh will be championing the cause for teenage mothers in her home parish of St Thomas as she embarks on her Beauty with a Purpose mission during her year-long reign.

Speaking yesterday at a homecoming press conference held at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in St Andrew, Singh told reporters that she comes from a line of women in her own family who have been teenage mothers.

Singh highlighted the need for educational and other opportunities to be made available to young mothers whose lives would otherwise be negatively impacted by a lack of support.

“I am the descendant of two women who had children during their teenage years. And I have seen them stress the importance of education to their children, and they [my parents] have instilled in me the importance of creating opportunities and grasping them and taking them for what they are worth when it comes to education and when it comes to music,” said Singh.

On a tour of her home parish today, Toni-Ann will visit the St Thomas Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation, which is her special project to help build awareness and raise funds for pregnant girls and teenage mothers.

“I realise that there are so many awesome women all over Jamaica, and all over the world, that have the same capabilities I have, and they don’t have the opportunities and they might not have the parents that I have had who are so willing and or so able to make the those capabilities into opportunities,” she added.

In similar vein, co-chairperson of the oldest running international beauty pageant and conceptualiser behind the Beauty with a Purpose slogan rebranding of the Miss World franchise, Julia Morley, stressed that the Miss World Pageant is not just about physical beauty.

What began as a bikini contest started by the founder and her late husband, Eric Morley, in 1951, has blossomed into a franchise championing women coming from all facets of life, making positive contributions to various causes globally.

Morley said that the beauty pageant in 1971 adopted the Beauty with a Purpose slogan precisely because of the positive impact that can be garnered from a syndicate of influential women around the world.

“There are now 130 countries all working on projects in their own country. What we try to do in a small way or bigger ways is to get license holders involved in being useful with the young people who are going forward in their local contests.

“Miss World is a fantastic, wonderful feeling to be able to change what people have to deal with, whether it is [not having] clothes on their back, or fresh water,” said Morley.

Morley also said that all the money raised in the Miss World pageant will go towards a cause in the home countries of a certain number of contestants.

During her reign, Toni-Ann will travel to 40 of these countries where she will help to raise funds for these projects.

During her brief visit to Jamaica, Toni-Ann was also honoured at a cultural tribute concert at held at Emancipation Park, in New Kingston yesterday where she was presented with the key to the capital city by mayor of Kingston, Senator Delroy Williams.