00:00 The multicultural melting pot that is Trinidad and Tobago and a showing of
00:05 love and compassion by Trinbegonians to their Venezuelan neighbors. That's how
00:09 local pageant holder Stolen Productions Limited has sold a selection of
00:14 Venezuelan national Milady Maturano as the representative for this country at
00:19 the Miss Grand International Pageant in Vietnam in October. Miss World Trinidad
00:24 and Tobago 2012 Athalia Samuel presents her view on several matters raised in
00:29 relation to this as we continue with part two of this interview. There are
00:33 opinions in the public domain that it's good at a Venezuelan national who we
00:39 cannot confirm at this time as a citizen has gotten an opportunity like this.
00:42 What's your take? We need to try to teach people the reality of what shows
00:49 are about. It's okay that you're here now and you're not a resident of your
00:54 residence, you're living here but you cannot see that it is the same thing as
00:59 having someone who is just of a different country living here and it
01:04 represents who we are. It's not the same. It's really and truly chalk and cheese
01:08 if you ask me. Maturano's request for an interpreter during the final question
01:13 and answer segment on the night of the pageant only added fuel to the fire over
01:18 her representing the country. Some have said the delegate should at least be
01:23 proficient in English. Do you agree? The thing is they try to literally limit
01:28 having a translator in most shows and most of the the organizations they speak
01:36 English so it's easier to have someone who is either bilingual, trilingual or of
01:43 the study of English in some sort of way so it is very important and knowing that
01:49 if you're coming from Trinidad and Tobago you must I mean you must because
01:53 that is who we are and you must be able to carry on that conversation and even
01:58 when we speak most of the time they love our accent. Our accent is what brings
02:03 them. I made some of the most awesome friends in the world because of how I
02:08 speak and try to teach them. We must be able to know some part of
02:13 our history and where we are from. But Samuel is drawing a line. Please stop
02:19 dragging the young lady because it's really not nice it's not cool. Samuel
02:23 says she was involved in pageantry for 11 years before she even got a chance to
02:28 represent this country and according to her that's a reality for many young
02:33 women who hold a dream dear to them. Although the chance of being selected is
02:37 slim young women submit themselves to a process that is anything but easy in
02:43 involving speech training, learning to walk, style coaching and more. I had to be
02:48 aware of national issues and be able to if they ask me about something about
02:55 Trinidad and Tobago considering our economical standards and stance I have
03:00 to be able to say something or Commonwealth or mental health within the
03:05 communities. The process is never easy it's very vigorous I train twice a day
03:10 every day until I left for Miss World. People don't know that I used to be at
03:14 the gym 4 or 5 a.m. till about 6 7 I had work and after work I had class and
03:20 after class I had training again. So I was going for weeks on weeks. She
03:25 believes the controversy could sully the pageant and act as a deterrent to TNT
03:29 nationals wanting to screen in the future. You might as well just go
03:34 through the route of handpicking rather than waste money to keep a show
03:39 and these young ladies spend a lot of money to get themselves ready as well
03:42 too because some of the girls if you think about most of the shows it's in
03:47 in Port of Spain when we have girls who are coming from deep south coming to
03:51 Port of Spain for shows and vice versa so when we think about the amount of
03:55 money they even lost because even when I did Miss World I had to choose after a
04:01 while I had to choose is it that I'm keeping the job or I prefer to represent my
04:04 country. That was the ultimate time I was given. However the criteria for the
04:09 pageant and the only factor that has shot Matarano into the spotlight. There
04:15 are allegations of the delegate having an OnlyFans account with sexually
04:19 explicit photos based on your experience in pageantry. Is this something that can
04:24 generally be overlooked? To be honest these are more girls to have you
04:29 disqualified in more ways than others to be truthful. However over the weekend
04:34 Matarano's manager Sharice Parsons indicated that legal action would be
04:38 taken as she stated that Envy was responsible for the circulation of the
04:43 images which she claimed were manipulated. Parsons said it occurred as
04:48 a result of the preferred delegate by those responsible for the images not
04:52 being chosen. Alicia Boucher TV6 News
04:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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