> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Daughter of Sri Lankan Tamil Parents Reaches Miss England Final - URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/daughter-of-sri-lankan-tamil-parents-reaches-miss-england-final/ - Published: 2026-11-10T11:25:34.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-10T11:27:03.000Z - Author: Our Reporter - Tags: November 2026 **LONDON:** Abbeyrame Laveniya Sriharan, a 27-year-old chartered accountant who competes as Abbey Laveniya, has reached the final of Miss England, days after entering the competition. She was born in Surrey to Sri Lankan Tamil parents. Ms. Sriharan secured her place among the 12 finalists by winning the contest’s sports round in Leicester on Oct. 4, a multi-stage fitness test of endurance, sprinting and general knowledge. The victory earned her the title Miss England Sportswoman 2026 and a direct route to the final, which will be held at the Athena in Leicester on Nov. 17\. She also holds the Miss Surrey title, and she says she is the first British Tamil woman to win both crowns. Her maternal grandparents were Manunayagam and Bavani. Her grandmother was born in Colombo in 1930 and later settled in Britain, where she died in 2020\. Ms. Sriharan is a niece of Usha Sri-Skanda-Rajah, a Canada-based Tamil rights advocate and columnist. She joins a short line of British women of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage who have reached the national final, including Dilani Selvanathan in 2019 and Sujaana Jeyaratnam, who represented Coventry in 2022. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f0/aa/f0aaf7b7-6b61-437a-846a-1a80de683912/content/images/2026/11/daughter-of-sri-lankan-tamil-p-a8de90-2.jpg) Ms. Sriharan is an ACA-qualified chartered accountant and works as an auditor in financial services, specializing in banking, at one of Britain’s Big Four accounting firms. She graduated from King’s College London in 2020\. She is also a model, a classically trained Bharatanatyam dancer and the founder of a women’s empowerment initiative, Beyond the Box. She grew up playing tennis and netball. She trained in Bharatanatyam under Prakash Yadagudde at the Bhavan, the Indian arts center in West London, and gave her solo debut performance, known as an arangetram, at Logan Hall in London in 2015. “I truly see dancers as athletes,” she said, pointing to the years of training that the form’s footwork and facial expression demand. She builds strength for it with weight training and Pilates. She has performed at Westminster Abbey during the Commonwealth Service, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, and at Wembley Stadium during a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. She led a storytelling and dance session at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich for the Bhavan’s Diwali outreach program, and appeared as a Bharatanatyam dancer in “Picture This,” an Amazon Prime film starring Simone Ashley. At King’s College London, she led a charity dance production of more than 250 performers at a West End theater that raised £10,000 for three charities. She has volunteered at St. Christopher’s Hospice in London and taught English to children and adults in Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka. Beyond the Box held its first event on Oct. 25, combining padel with discussions about confidence. She credits her mother with the idea. Her mother contracted polio at 4 and was told she would not amount to much. “She proved everyone wrong, moving countries and building a successful business while raising a family,” Ms. Sriharan said. For the pageant’s ethical fashion challenge, she made a gown from her mother’s old saris. The winner of Miss England will represent the country at the 73rd Miss World pageant, scheduled for Tanzania in May 2027.