The Sunday Mail
Tendai Chirau
ON July 30, 2017 The Sunday Mail Society carried an opinion piece by Mtandazo Dube under the headline, “Miss World title: No chance in hell for Zim”.
Through the article the writer proclaimed himself “a mini deity”, who determines who wins Miss World and under what circumstances. According to the writer’s narrative, Zimbabwe will not make it because the Miss Zimbabwe Trust allegedly “barred” contestants from the diaspora from participating in the event.
From the onset, it should be noted that it is the Trust which agreed to engage Zimbabweans from the Diaspora to be included in our events.
Therefore, it will be an act of irrationality for anyone to suggest that the Trust barred those from the diaspora from walking on the ramp without interrogating the reasons surrounding their failure to participate. As a matter of fact, contestants from the diaspora were given a deadline to be in the boot camp by July 6, 2017.
The deadline was not adhered to and the Trust conceded accommodative extensions more than three times, which again were not met. Miss World Zimbabwe Boot Camp commenced on July 3, 2017.After the Diasporans failed to meet the deadlines, the Trust resolved to give them a chance next year considering that local contestants had already covered a lot of ground in our three week long camp.
The Trust treats all contestants equally regardless of where they come from, this meant that drafting the foreign-based contestants a week before the final was going to disadvantage those already in the camp and also disrupt the flow of our activities.
Further, Miss Zimbabwe Trust takes seriously the boot camp activities for they include a number of important activities, which fully prepare the finalists for the final event.
The activities include inter-alia; grooming and deportment, confidence building, civic education, presentation, beauty with a purpose project and stage routines.
We fully acceded to this request and that explains why Miss World Zimbabwe-USA and her pageant director attended the event.
It is worth mentioning that the Trust respects former queens and whenever necessary, bilaterally engages them and never makes it a media issue.
Further, it should be taken into cognisance that each Miss World event is different from the previous one.
For instance, Miss World 2017 has ushered in new categories, which the organisers christened “head to head”.
This category was not there last year. The emergence of these new categories buttresses the uniqueness of each Miss World edition.
In organising our events, we are guided by communication, which we constantly get from Miss World, as Miss Zimbabwe Trust is an affiliate of the prestigious organisation.
We share the information we get from Miss World organisers with our judges in what we call the judges’ briefs.
This, therefore, means that our judges, who are men and women of integrity, are fully equipped with the latest information regarding what to judge on in tandem with the template from Miss World.
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Our selection process for Miss World Zimbabwe contestants is inclusive, our auditions are open to all who wish to participate, provided they satisfy the set criteria.
Those who win during provincial contests are free to come to our auditions provided they meet our requirements.
In addition, Miss Zimbabwe Trust would like to categorically state that the manner we hold our final event is supported by our sponsors and thus befitting such an event.
A lot of funds go into organising this event and the Miss Zimbabwe Trust is not ready to compromise on this aspect of quality, which the opinion piece described as extravagant.
The opinion piece by Mtandazo Dube, which augurs doom about Zimbabwe’s chances of making an impact on the Miss World stage, can only be described as the work of one who is ill-informed about the running of the modelling pageant and motivated by a nefarious agenda meant to discredit the Miss Zimbabwe Trust brand and cast aspersions on the standing of the entire nation at large.
It is a worrying fact that such an opinion, which is diametrically opposed to the promotion of national pageants finds space in a national paper which respects national values.
One may surely be forgiven for inferring that the opinion was written by someone who is not a Zimbabwean and wishes to see the death of the national pageant.
For the record, since we took over in late 2013, we successfully resurrected the national pageant, which had literally died. Some of our queens have triumphed in certain auspicious competitions, which include Super Model and Beauty with a Purpose. We are convinced that our process will one day produce a Miss World from Zimbabwe. This is indeed a process and not an event. For this to be achieved we need to work hand-in-glove with the media and we accept constructive criticism. However, opinions bordering on blatant vitriol and which paint a black picture about the national pageant only serve other purposes, which are best known to the writer as they do not reflect any iota of progressive thinking.
In our unwavering pursuit of probity, we are confident time will vindicate us.
Tendai Chirau is the Miss Zimbabwe Trust spokesperson
