Former State ward crowned St James Festival Queen

Growing up, Tanya Kentish often wondered why her story looked different from everyone else’s.

Years ago, when financial hardship made it impossible for her biological mother to care for all of her children, she made the difficult decision to place the young Kentish in the care of another woman. At the time, it felt like loss. Years later, Kentish realised it was the beginning of a journey that would transform pain into purpose.

That journey came full circle on Saturday night when the 21-year-old communications and service operations manager was crowned Miss St James Festival Queen 2026. But for Kentish, the title represents far more than a personal achievement. It is an opportunity to inspire girls growing up in circumstances similar to her own to believe their beginnings do not define their future.

Asked what her younger self would think if she knew she would one day wear the crown, Kentish’s face lit up with the unmistakable excitement of a little girl reliving a childhood dream.

“She’d first be like, ‘Wait, you entered a competition?’ Then she’d be like, ‘Oh... we won... wow’!” she laughed.

For a brief moment, the confident young woman wearing the crown disappeared. In her place was the little girl who had once questioned where she belonged.

“This means so much to me because I remember deciding years ago that I no longer wanted to feel isolated. I didn’t want to feel depressed. I wanted to be more than just what my story said I was supposed to be,” she recalled. “I started asking myself, ‘What is the purpose in my story? What can I use from what I’ve been through to grow and to elevate’?”

That question changed the course of her life. The answer led her to volunteer at the Granville Girls’ Home, establish Her Voice, a mentorship programme for girls in residential care and teenage mothers, and pursue studies in guidance and counselling with the goal of becoming a clinical psychologist.

Through Her Voice, she hopes to provide mentorship, counselling, literacy support, life-skills training and educational opportunities for girls facing challenges similar to those she once experienced.

“I want them to know that where you start isn’t where you’re going to finish,” she said. “How you finish is determined by you. You can either sit there in pity, or you can use that pain to rise.”

Just as importantly, Kentish hopes her own story will challenge the misconceptions surrounding children in State care.

Too often, she says, people assume every ward of the state is a child who has misbehaved. Her own experience reminds her that children enter state care for many different reasons. In her case, it was financial hardship, not bad behaviour, that changed the course of her childhood. Although there was a period when feelings of rejection caused her to act out and the Child Development Agency (now Child Protection and Family Services Agency) intervened, she believes those experiences reinforced why children in care need understanding, mentorship and opportunity, not judgement.

One of the evening’s most touching moments came after the coronation when both her biological and adoptive families gathered to celebrate.

“I believe that’s a gift because there are a lot of adopted children who don’t even know their biological mother.”

Her adopted mother, Nicole Smith, travelled from the United States for the occasion.

“I don’t like the word ‘adopted’,” Smith said simply. “She’s my child.” Watching her daughter greet well-wishers, Smith smiled.

“She’s always a star to me,” she said. “I declared that she was already a winner.”

As Kentish prepares to represent St James at the National Miss Jamaica Festival Queen Competition, she hopes the greatest impact of her reign will not be measured by the crown she wears, but by the confidence she helps build in another little girl who may still be wondering where she belongs.

“If one young girl reads my story, I want her to know that she can do anything she puts her mind to,” she said. “Use your voice. Even if you don’t sound as eloquent as someone else, use that voice, because the voice that you have is so powerful.”