A trial beauty contest for rural women living with disabilities has proven so successful that the organisers have decided to make it an annual event.
The contest, which took place in Limpopo recently, attracted a huge crowd as about a dozen women living with various disabilities, including paraplegics in wheelchairs, participated.
“More still needs to be done to inspire and empower our disabled people. We cannot ignore the fact that most disabled people, who come from deep rural communities have limited opportunities to make something out of themselves,” said Uafhindula Lalamani of Unique Me, a non-profit organisation.
“This was just the beginning, but we are saying to people out there ‘Let’s lend a helping hand to develop and empower disabled people as they did not choose to be disabled’,” he said.
He said they decided to make the contest an annual event after realising that more still needed to be done to empower disabled women to be independent. In October, Unique Me is set to host an event which will be known as ME DAY where people living with different disabilities will be given an opportunity to showcase their talents through singing, dancing and the reciting of poems.