Miss Mt Pleasant queen receives prize

Arts Reporter—
Miss Mount Pleasant pageant organiser Jaison Pasade stood by his word when he handed over a Honda Fit car to inaugural Miss Mt Pleasant queen Sikhulile Shumba on Wednesday. In an era where most beauty queens have been promised prizes that never come, the ceremony was held barely a week after the pageant that took place last weekend at 7Arts Theatre in Avondale.

Shumba was elated after receiving the car that she will use during her reign to reach out to the Mt Pleasant community through various projects.
“I am happy to receive the prize. I did not know it would come this early and I want to thank organisers of the pageant for standing by their word.

The car will make it easy for me to carry out various projects that are lined up during my reign,” she said.

Pasade, who is also Member of Parliament for Mt Pleasant, said the pageant was one of their projects to empower the youths.

“We are working on various projects to empower young people and also ensure that the constituency has development projects. The pageant is just one of the projects. The pageant is meant to empower the girl child and give her confidence and courage to have influence in the society,” he said.

“Sikhulile will embark on some charity and developmental projects that will enable her to show her capability beyond physical beauty. We want her to have influence in the constituency and work with other ladies in pushing their goals and agendas towards development.”

He said all models that participated in the pageant will get monetary rewards with the prizes for first and second princesses expected soon.

First princess at the pageant was Florence Chikomo while Vimbai Mungofa was voted second princess.

The pageant saw 20 contestants from Mt Pleasant constituency participating and it was a major success with former model Valerie Chingonzo playing a major role in ensuring smooth flow of proceedings before, during and after the event.

Honourable Pasade said they are planning to make the pageant an annual event that would unearth talent within the Mt Pleasant community.