Chris Theko
Miss Culture Lesotho, Reatile Molefe left the country on Sunday to compete at the Miss Culture International pageant to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa tomorrow, December 4.
Molefe, 19, won the 2018 Miss Culture Lesotho pageant that was held in Leribe as a Lesotho High School student.
Since her victory, the competition has since been iced and no subsequent edition of the contest has hitherto proceeded because of now the Covid-19 pandemic.
A number of months prior to her departure, there were fears that she would not make the trip as Molefe was reportedly short of M26 200 to cover all expenses of the trip.
A major blanket retail outlet, Aranda Textile donated four blankets to the model and her pageant director Rantsatsi Mokeki collected the gifts from the Aranda headquarters in Randfontein, Johannesburg.
“Amongst the things she really needed in her budget were the three blankets.
“She will wear these blankets on different evening occasions during this week-long Miss Culture international competition.
She will also present one as a gift to one of the contestants from another country,†Mokeki said.
The Miss Culture International is a platform that was created to empower and showcase beauty and fashion talent fused with culture on a global platform.
Its purpose is to bring together women from diverse cultures to learn from one another and find common ground in the pursuit of a transformation and change agenda.
The organiser, Miss Culture International, manages pageants in order to unite people from diverse cultures, learn from each other and celebrate different cultures through beauty and fashion. The pageant’s head office is in Cape Town, South Africa.
Molefe has met the criteria for suitable candidates which include amongst other things, age, being a citizen of the country she is representing and meeting all the administrative requirements, according to the Director of King Moshoeshoe Film Festival, Aubrey Silinyana.
Silinyana said they are working with Molefe and the Beauty Pageant Association of Lesotho, to support her journey which not only involves participating in the event but also other build-up programmes such as national casting and a boot-camp that will be held in SA.
“As far as I know, in the history of Miss Culture Lesotho the Mountain Kingdom has never been represented before in this international competition. We therefore thank Basotho for making sure that this happens,” Silinyana added.
Meanwhile, the excited Molefe expressed her gratitude to Basotho and promised to make them proud.
“As the reigning Miss Culture Lesotho, I would like to thank all of you Basotho-individuals and companies-who made it your mission to support me from the beginning until now and I plan to make you my people proud at the Miss Culture International,†Molefe said.
The winner of Miss Culture International pageant will travel across the world and visit over 50 000 school children, members of the business community and cultural organisations.