Image Caribbean Cultural Society, Inc.

Our mission is to contribute to the social, interpersonal and emotional development of Caribbean women and women of other ethnic minority groups. We plan and implement programs that can facilitate the empowerment of women by building self esteem, fostering cultural awareness, cultivating personal values, developing the ability to assert self, building relationships, and creating role models. Participants will be exposed to opportunities that can help them to become more aware of self and develop direction. The exposure provided will also help the young women involved to be more aware of their community and be able to determine how they can help in its growth and continued development.

The Ms. Orlando Caribbean and Ethnic Minority Pageant, formerly the Ms. Orlando Caribbean Pageant is the culmination of years of thought, effort, and experience of founder Heather Chisholm and her deep rooted community spirit. In 1992, she founded The Image Grooming Project in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The goal was to assist women to cultivate values and attitudes that would lead to personal growth and goal achievement. The idea was to motivate young women to persevere through strenuous, demanding and time consuming processes long enough to acquire the attitudes that would sustain outstanding achievement. At the conception of this vision the participants were not involved in a pageant. The holding point was a modeling agency, “the something glamorous” to keep them interested.

After relocating to the United States, the drive to help, guide, encourage and teach character building through the same media remained strong. Through a team that personifies tenacity and the desire to share and inspire others the Image Caribbean Cultural Society emerged as a non-profit entity with the same mission. The Ms. Orlando Caribbean Pageant was used to replace modeling as the “the something glamorous” to keep the young women interested long enough to persevere in spite of the demands required to make it through to the goal.

The pageant has now expanded to include a wider array of ethnic minorities as the need for direction and character building does not only exist in the Caribbean community among Caribbean women. Today we are moving forward with The Ms. Orlando Caribbean Pageant to accommodate women who are not of Caribbean descent. We are not sure where this journey will take us tomorrow but we are positive that this organization will get stronger in our continued dynamic efforts to respond to varying needs in our community. We are destined to make an impact.