Eldorado Park is now home to two pageant winners, after Taahira Katz, 16, was crowned the Gauteng winner of the Miss Junior Teen South Africa on Sunday.
She joins another Eldorado Park resident, Liesl Laurie, who was named Miss South Africa in March.
Angelica Nortjé from Pretoria is the national winner of the Miss Junior Teen pageant.
Taahira said she wants to use her new title to improve her community by promoting awareness of drug and alcohol abuse and teenage pregnancy. She also wants to set up a drive to collect stationery for local schools.
Taahira competed for four days, winning the title for best circus outfit on Saturday, which she says was her favourite night of the pageant.
It was her first modelling experience, and she said she had only had two months of training after entering the competition online in January. She competed with about 200 other girls, said her mother Nadia Katz.
“I was nervous,” Taahira said.
“There were girls who had been modelling for many years, people who had won before.”
Her mother was less nervous.
“There were people who walked out because their children didn’t win,” she said.
“It wasn’t as stressful for us.”
But Nadia said seeing her daughter on stage still made her heart skip a beat. “Seeing her in that moment in time on stage, it was beautiful,” she said.
After the win, Laurie called to congratulate her, Taahira said.
She said Laurie was a role model to her, and she hoped to enter the Miss SA competition after she finished school.
Taahira got plenty of support from the Eldorado Park community throughout the competition.
Portia August, the Katzes’ neighbour, urged residents to vote for Taahira in the competition.
She spread the news to Taahira’s school, Kliptown Secondary High, where principal encouraged classmates to vote.
“Everyone just came saying, ‘how can they promote this?’,” Nadia said of the community. “It just goes to show that Eldorado Park is not all about drugs.”
Dereleen James, founder of the Sharing Without Shame anti-drugs organisation, said young people in Eldorado Park should know they can achieve anything regardless of their background.