This is an excerpt from The Movers and Shakers feature in MEGA June 2025 issue
While it is expected for Suzanna Pavadee Vincheinrut Yuzon to be beautiful—she was Ms. Thailand 1995 and 1996 and Mrs. World 2003 after all—her physical appearance pales in comparison to the passion that she has poured into her work helping with children with Down Syndrome and their parents. She merely explained that she was Ms. Thailand for two years because of the passing of the Queen Mother in 1996 so there wasn’t a Ms.Thailand pageant for that year. “I’m not an avid fan of following pageants,” she admits. “It just kind of happened at that time.”
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However, pageants are still part of Yuzon’s life these days, although for a wholly different purpose. She is the founder of the Miss Possibilities beauty pageant. This pageant is for girls with special needs, to convey the message that anything is possible for them.
Yuzon’s first-born daughter Joey has Down Syndrome, and she has seen and experienced the stigma that came with it first hand. She always thought that there’s a reason why she and her husband became parents to a child with Down Syndrome. So they volunteer at the Down Syndrome Association of the Philippines. This is also why, while on vacation in the United States, a poster for Miss Unlimited caught Yuzon’s eye. It was a beauty pageant for young women with special needs. So she took a photo of it and posted it on Facebook, with the caption, “Sana, one day in the Philippines.”
Then Eric Teng of the Mango Tree Restaurant group saw her post and offered his restaurant as the venue of the first Miss Possibilities pageant in 2015, the first pageant of its kind in Southeast Asia. Ten years later, through the support of other parents who have children with Down Syndrome, friends and volunteers, the pageant grew and is still growing strong today. Now they also have a celebrity fashion show, and the proceeds raised from the fashion show and pageant go to medical missions, vision therapy, and horseback riding therapy.
The stigma for children with special needs is still there, Yuzon admits, but whenever people support and attend Miss Possibilities or the pageant gets featured in national news media, she hopes that people will see their children as people who they need to feel sorry for. “We should be celebrating them and their differences,” she says.
Read more of MEGA’s Pinoy Pride Awardees in MEGA June 2025 issue now available on Readly, Magzter, Press Reader and Zinio.
Photography by JERICK SANCHEZ. Creative Direction by BRIE VENTURA. Fashion Direction by ROKO ARCEO. Fashion Associate ERICA TEROL. Editorial Assistant THESSMAR LECTURA. Photographer’s assistants KARL RIMANDO, BUDDY REYES, and DAVE ORPILLA. Makeup ARIA ORTEGA . Hair MATT LEDESMA. Shot on Location at The Manila Peninsula.
