BY CHIEDZA MAZHANGARA THIS year’s Miss Culture Zimbabwe pageant, scheduled for this Saturday at Longcheng Plaza in the capital, is celebrating the country’s women and rich culture embodied by the southern African nation’s unique ethnic groups.
Speaking to NewsDay Life & Style, reigning Miss Culture Zimbabwe queen Pauline Marere said: “The aim of the pageant this year is to bring young ladies from all the provinces of Zimbabwe so that they can find common ground on issues that are affecting women as far as culture is concerned, including child marriages.”
She stated that Miss Culture operates in a different way from other pageants as it targets models from all parts of the country without being particular on such traits as height and body size.
The Miss Culture beauty pageant does not only help women to celebrate culture, it also assists women with income-generating projects. “We embrace women in their different forms and shapes. I believe our pageant is definitely helping our models as we will have a boot camp from July 25 until 30 and during this camp, models will be taught various life skills such as making perfumes, dishwasher, body lotions, foam bath and other hand-made products.
“The vision being that after the pageant, models can go and start their own brands and become financially independent. We have also made sure that our finalists acquire strong portfolios by taking them through a series of photo shoots,” Marere pointed out.
Asked about how she views the current state of modelling in Zimbabwe, the reigning queen said the industry required everyone to work together and to continue empowering young women.
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