Fashion & Pageants
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Tinotenda Chikohora
N
ot so much of Shakespeare’s
works
were
understood
universally as this famous quote:
“Some are born great, some achieve
greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them”.
While the majority of us fall in the
catergory of being born great or having
greatness thrust upon us, nothing beats
the sweet taste of defying the odds to
achieve greatness.
Namibia’s Venanacius Rukero’s ride
to greatness might be mistaken for a
Hollywood fairy tale. Through leaps
and bounds, he rose from being a street
urchin to a respected member of society.
An outspoken boy, Venanacius is the
founder and president of Miss Heritage
World, a global pageant.
Despite the negative perceptions
associated with beauty pageants, the
challenges weren’t enough to veer the
determined young man from the course
of his dream.
“There was a programme run by the
Namibian government whereby the
Ministry of Social Welfare reached out
to homeless children, trying to persuade
and rehabilite them by inculcating them
into formal mainstream education,” he
said.
Finding himself in the cold world with
no one to turn to, one would have thought
that his life was crushed. However, he
managed to meander through the mazes
of street life to join the orphanage and
pursue formal education under the
Page 72
patronage of the Namibian first lady,
Madam Penehupifo Pohamba.
“So, when the social welfare reached
out to me, I agreed to be taken into fostercare and later enrolled at a formal school
where I studied all the way up to grade
12,” he said.
While studying, Rukero discovered
his passion for beauty pageants.
“My passion for beauty pageants
grew and matured. Realising that
all the world beauty pageants
such as Miss World and Miss
Universe were of European
origin (thus the definition of
beauty being Eurocentric),
and there was no African
voice to world pageants,
I figured the need for an
African pageant,” said
Venanacius
when
asked about his
passion for this
pageant.
The
MHW
beauty pageant
was first called
Miss
Cultural
Heritage World
when it initially
started in 2009.
It was rebranded
Miss Heritage World after realizing that
the terminology might suggest a bias
towards culture and not encompass one’s
heritage, as a whole.
The pageant stands out high as a cut
above the rest, as it aims at differentiating
its stance from the stereotyped beauty
pageants.
The Parade - Zimbabwe’s Most Read Lifestyle Magazine
“Whereas most pageants
emphasize on physical
beauty,
a
April 2013