The 70th edition of Miss World pageant, Miss World 2021, is set to be held on 16th December 2021 at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico where Toni-Ann Singh of Jamaica will crown her successor at the end of the event finale. There was no pageant held in 2020 due to the rampant spread of Covid-19 across the world.
While almost all the delegates have finally arrived in the host country and have begun with the registration process for the competition, the Miss World organization has officially drawn groups for the Head to Head challenge of the 70th edition of the pageant.
The organization has recently begun with the group interviews for the challenge and the first interview that has been uploaded by the organization is of Group 13 including Rwanda, Ireland, Belgium, Colombia, Curacao and Finland.
The round was hosted by Miss World 2019 Toni Ann Singh and Miss World 2015 Stephanie Del Valle. The stunning hosts introduced the challenge as they introduced the contestants, shared their presentation videos and asked questions and finally the contestants were asked questions at the end of the round.
As the divas introduced themselves and took the audience through their beautiful countries, sharing about their cultures, people and beliefs. They also shared their passions and Beauty with a Purpose projects. Towards the end of the round, the six divas were all randomly questioned by the hosts.
First up, Grace Ingabire of Rwanda was asked, “Who do you consider to be your role model?” She shared, “First, foremost, my mom. This lady, this woman teaches me a lot from how she acts. The way she approaches life is very interesting. A lot of love for everyone, regardless of where you come from, what you have, whether you have wronged her, starting the day with a new mindset, sacrificing a lot. She really pushes me to explore my mission and why I am here on this earth. The second person is this Nigerian artist called Sinhach. She sings songs that are so empowering and uses her gift as a passion to empower the world.”
Secondly, Ireland’s Pamela Ubaezuonu was asked, “What is your motto and why?” She shared, “My motto is to never let your circumstance define who you are as a person. If I had told you that I was almost homeless but I am sitting in front og you woul you have believed that? No. When I was seven years old my family’s business went bust and we found ourselves having to make the decision to go find the greener pasture for us and my mom was the person who decided this. I was the eldest in the family so all my younger siblings were toddlers when we moved to Ireland and found ourselves in the direct provision system, it a refugee or asylum system. We spent over 10 years of our lives there without any finances, my mom got 19 euro a week and the kids got 9 euro a week by the government. We were limited in what we could eat. With all this going on, but the pressures of being the eldest and helping my mom, I thought the responsibilities were on me to help my family and what I sued was education. Education became my superpower. Now I stand in front of you, a medical scientist and also a master’s degree holder at Trinity College, Dublin and I’m also Miss Ireland but not only that I’m the first balck woman to win this title. So I stand before you a proud woman, a young girl who had a dream to be greater than what the world taught her to be.”
Moving onto Belgium, Celine Van Ouystel was asked where she would see herself in the next five years, to which she replied, “If you would have asked me that question when I was a younger, I probably would have given you a detailed answer because I was such a control freak and had my life written out but then corona came and I realized that nothing in life is guaranteed, the only thing that we want to know for sure is that it ends. I lost my grandmother to the virus and she was my biggest fan. So, no matter what you do, no matter who you are, enjoy life and do whatever makes you happy. In five years from now, I hope to still be doing what I love and I might be a lawyer, entertainer or travelling new world or I might be laying on this beach, I don’t know yet, all I know is I will be very grateful to still be happy, have my family and my loved ones.”
Next in line, Colombia’s Andrea Aguilera was asked, “If you were granted one wish, what you would wish for.” She answered, “I wish that ego could disappear. I believe we live in a beautiful world with amazing people but sometimes people are focused on negative qualities and anger and that is because of their ego. So, I would love to see the beauty of their souls that is hidden behind their egos. I would like to see what people are in essence, what they want to do for humanity, their families. I would like to have the opportunity to know the souls of people, their true desires and sometimes it is impossible because we live in a world which is always in rush, people want to have more and more and maybe sometimes we forget what we really are as human being and as people and what do we have to share with the world. So, my wish would be to see the true heart and souls and people without ego.”
Curacao was asked about what could be her greatest contribution to the world, to which Alvinette Soliana answered, “Besides of doing volunteer works, I definitely think that me being a public speaker, motivational one, is definitely one of the greatest because I already mentioned, we all need words, we all need motivation sometimes. We go through so much ladies and what kept us going is the words. It’s the negativities that we turn into positivities to use to go forward in life. So, I really think that my voice can really help one another because that is what saved me.”
Last but not the least, Emilia Lepomaki of Finland was asked, “What according to you are the qualities of a good friend?” She confidently answered, “I think that the key of a true friendship is appreciation and love. I believe that it doesn’t come from the outside, the beauty comes from within and if the heart is in the right place, then it is the true beauty. As a friend, I want to stand behind my friends and want to be there for them and support them as good as I can because I think that if they have a dream, they have to go for it and I have to support them for them and as always I’m happy that we have so many new friends here, new friends for a lifetime. Most important is that we are here for each other, united, fighting together for the things to happen.”
The divas from all over the world will move forward in the 15 groups drawn by the organization, where each group will have a winner and then two by two winners will compete with one another until one ultimate winner is determined through voting on the Miss World website, who will then get an automatic spot in the top for the final night. In this challenge, each of the ladies are being given the chance to speak about their passions and Beauty with a Purpose projects.