HARARE - Miss Curvy, now dubbed Diamond Queen of Africa, will be held on September 11 at the Gaborone International Convention Centre in Botswana.
The pageant, which is a homegrown idea of Mercy Mushaninga’s ZimGossip Modelling Agency, failed to kick off last year in Namibia over fears of Ebola.
“The reason we are taking it to Botswana is that we want to move it around Africa to promote tourism,” Mushaninga said.
“I cannot say the incident we had with a certain sponsor has driven us outside. We have always had plans of making it a continental pageant. Last year, we were supposed to host it in Namibia, but the Ebola scare put everything on hold.”
When she started Miss Curvy Zimbabwe in 2011, the modelling agency patron said she had come across so many beautiful girls that wanted to be models but failed to make the cut because of their fuller figures.
Mushaninga is working with a Tswana man who is well-versed in the modelling field in that country.
“We gave a year-long licence to Thuto Marebela who has been in the modelling industry for years,” Mushaninga said.
“We started working with him in 2012 at Miss Curvy Botswana, hence the decision to give him a licence,” she said. Participating countries include Zimbabwe, Namibia, Nigeria, Botswana, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Cameron and Mozambique.
At the first-ever Diamond Queen of Africa, Zimbabwe’s Chiedza Gwanda was crowned Queen, Boitumelo Secha of South Africa was the first princess and Mozambique’s Nancy Ricardo was the second princess.
In an effort to attract sponsorship from the tourism sector, Mushaninga took the fourth and last edition of Miss Curvy to the resort town of Kariba but the support she had hoped for did not materialise.
The only support that came her way was from OK Mart that provided some groceries. So dire has been the situation for the pageant that the reigning Miss Curvy Sheila Chikengezha, 19, as well as first princess Chantelle Jeradi, 19, and second princess Chengetayi Mnisi, 20, were not given any prizes for coming out tops. DailyNews
No comments:
Post a Comment