Happy Easter everyone!

Today, I am sharing with you one of the more inspiring pageant success stories of 2020. This is about an ordinary woman with extraordinary attributes and special aspirations who went on to “conquer the universe” in the midst of a global pandemic. While the rest of us struggled in 2020 up to now, this empowered woman was focused turning the year (that we all wanted to forget) as her springboard to success.

Lorevie Rexie Lianko Carrascal decided to use a unique beauty pageant to be her platform in advocating for gender equality, women empowerment and self-love. Last November 20, 2020, she was crowned the BeingShe Universe Grand Winner 2020 at Sofitel The Palm in Dubai.

Early Years

Growing up, Lorevie experienced bullying and discrimination for being chubby and “ugly”.  She was raised in a small town in Albay where the local make-up artists would avoid doing her hair and make-up as much as possible and instead, chose to transform her more beautiful-looking sister. There was even one incident when she saved up her salary to fulfill her dream of having her hair and make-up done by the top make-up artist at that time only to be rejected because the latter thought “it difficult to make her look pretty”.

She joined two small pageants, one during her highschool years and one in her collegiate years where she placed first runner-up in both competitions. Her determination and fighting spirit to give beauty a deeper meaning was lovingly supported by her doting grandfather who always reminded her that the negative opinions of others are not significant. He even reassured her further with a loving nickname that she carries up to this day, Beauty.

Instead of being embittered by all the names thrown at her by peers and neighbors, she focused on developing herself and poured all her time doing worthwhile activities such as being active in her community’s church choir, being a leader in school activities, reading books to enrich both her vocabulary and life en route to consistently finishing on top of her class since primary school.

Work after College

Lorevie went on to pass the Cultural Exchange program in Fredericksburg, Texas U.S.A. and eventually completed a Bachelor’s degree in Tourism, major in Travel Management from the University of Santo Tomas in Legazpi.

She worked as Head Category Analyst in one of Albay’s biggest mall chain, handling all the marketing and sales strategic plans. She also broadened her horizon and briefly worked in the country’s capital as Front Desk Officer at V.I.P. Suites Hotel.

Overseas work

Up until the BeingShe Universe pageant, Lorevie had been working behind-the-scenes as corporate administrator.

When an opportunity presented itself to work for the Human Resources Department of a real-estate company in Dubai, she joined the 2.2million Filipinos who went abroad in order to provide for her family’s needs and dreams.

As a modern-day woman, Lorevie balances her career while tending to her family from across the miles to the best of her ability.

BeingShe Universe

During the lockdown, Lorevie busied herself with sharing self-love tips on her YouTube channel when she came across BeingShe Universe – an international initiative of a pageant campaign that aims to empower and transform women and help them to lead their inner drive and passion with concrete impactful structure. She gave it a try. And the rest, as they say, is history. Things just fell into place from that point onwards.

Lorevie Rexie Lianko Carrascal went on to win the title of BeingShe Universe 2020 as well as the Confident Special Award. The prestigious pageant was attended by no less than the who’s who of Dubai, H.E. Roy Fernandes, Maher Al Khaja – the Michael Jackson of Dubai, Dorsai Khaghani, H.H. Sheikh Juma Bin Maktoum Al Maktoum and Dr. Antonio Rubel.

At 29 years old, Lorevie is set to achieve more as her life goals and priorities become much clearer to her, as she continues to work on the the kind of life she wants for herself and her family and as she fully embodies the true meaning of being an empowered woman, inspiring many along the way.

When asked what kind of charity work she is interested in doing, the loving mother of one said “I am looking for an orphanage to sponsor. It has been my dream since I was a young girl to build one.”

She also wants to encourage her fellow women to be clear with what they want from life and from others.

“To my dearest fellow women out there, we all have our reasons as to why we do what we do. As a daughter, sister, wife and mother, our reasons are always going to be highly likely for other people.

We sacrifice a lot for the people we love and care entrusted to our care. But please let us not forget to value and take good care of ourselves too. We can still move forward and have bigger dreams and goals in life while supporting the dreams and goals of our spouse and children.

And to all the women out there who aspire to shine their brightest and inspire others, always start it within yourself. I always believe that you cannot give an advice or inspire anyone better than having or sharing your own experiences.”

Spoken so strongly as only an empowered woman could, the Grand winner of BeingShe Universe 2020 is determined to enjoy her two-year reign as she focuses on her fellow women in carrying on with her duties and responsibilies as reigning queen. 

Future Projects

She has a line up of activities for the year which includes being a Goodwill ambassador and spokesperson, a Netflix Originals movie project and several charity work projects for the town who once called her “ugly”, proving her naysayers and critics that the true definition of beauty is possessing a beautiful mind, a pure heart, exemplified in a life lived beautifully.