MISS World Guyana announced its Top 10 Finalists at an official public ceremony held last Friday, May 26th, 2017 at the entertainment strip located in the Giftland Mall.  As customary, the Top 10 Finalists were appointed Regional Ambassadors to represent Guyana’s 10 administrative regions throughout the competition.
The event debuted Luxurious Bloom, a new collection by designer Marcie De Santos, which the Miss World Guyana semi-finalists showcased at the event. These are the ten beautiful young ladies who will be vying for the title of Miss World Guyana 2017 which is slated to be held on June 25. At the end of this competition, the crowned queen will go on to represent Guyana at the Miss World Pageant which will be staged in China in December.
The Miss World Guyana pageant serves as a platform to enable personal and professional growth of young women in addition to their promotion of beauty and talent. The event affords the young women the opportunity to raise awareness on social issues affecting their communities.
However, every young woman vying for the Miss World Guyana title is expected to compete against herself in an effort to become her best self: a well-rounded youth leader and role model.
 
Name: DELISHA WRIGHT
Region 1
Beauty with a Purpose Platform: Sexual Abuse
Delisha decided to enter the Pageant because, she said, it embodies the qualities that can push her beyond her limits to bring out her strength and the best version of herself.
Delisha said that her experience so far has allowed her to developed great communication skills, adding that her public speaking skills have improved since she has commenced training. Additionally, Wright said that she has also learned how to organize and plan properly for short term and long term and developed proper scheduling skills, etiquette and many other self-improvement traits.
This beauty said she plans on using her platform to educate her community and country, to empower, to inspire and to motivate people. Her Beauty with a Purpose project, “Sexual Abuse” is not one that can be dealt with alone, neither is it an issue that can be solved in a day, she added. She plans to reach out to her community and country, and join forces with them to curb the issue of sexual abuse to create a safer Guyana for us all.

NAME: SHARDA PRAMDEO
Region 2
Beauty with a Purpose Platform: Domestic Violence against Women.

Sharda chose the Miss World Competition over all other competitions because of the unique Beauty with a Purpose project which allows young ladies to showcase not just their beauty but also their intellectual, decision making and management skills. She believes that there is nothing more attractive than a person who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others.
During the training, she has developed many skills which, most importantly include supporting and loving the very girls she is competing against. Additionally, she has learned to carry herself with extra confidence, accepting criticism from others and is now able to be more self-aware.
Domestic violence is not a new epidemic, Sharda said, however, every day one in four women is abused but not much is done about it. In order to further develop her community and by extension, her country, she plans on raising awareness through her Domestic Violence campaign “Stop The Violence” through a multi-faced campaign. She also intends to host fundraising activities which will contribute to, Rafieya’s International Vision And Hope (RIVAH) which was founded by Miss World Guyana 2014, Rafieya Hussain. She has also collaborated with the Ministry of Social Protection in their Cut It Out campaign which aims to stop the abuse of women in Guyana.

NAME: HEMWANTIE SEODAT
Region 3
Beauty with a Purpose Platform: Education for underprivileged children

Her drive to join the competition stemmed from many reasons, including the wish to build her self-confidence, to be a role model in society, assist the underprivileged children of Guyana in securing an education and to have the exposure and support to undertake humanitarian work on a larger scale.
Hemwantie said that over the past months, her participation in the Miss World Guyana competition has seen her practicing dining etiquette, the art of public speaking and trying to be more organized. She added that from the training has allowed her groomed into respectable young women of society who will persevere, and use our knowledge to better the lives of others.
She said that her Beauty with a Purpose project allows her to assist children by paying CSEC fees, distribute school supplies, and giving children lessons and being of help whenever she can. She plans on working to ensure that there is a qualified person in different geographic locations of Guyana. This will ensure that in each community, there is someone to help the children, just like she did. “I will continue doing my humanitarian work even after this competition because, at the end of the day, I will feel satisfied that I am doing the best I can to better someone else’s life just as I was helped. This way, I believe, my community and the country at large can benefit from my platform,” she stated.

NAME: VENA MOOKRAM
Region 4
Beauty with a Purpose Platform:  Promoting Physical Fitness and Nutrition vis-à-vis the prevention of chronic disease
Vena told Pepperpot that she decided to enter the Miss World Guyana competition because she saw this pageant as the perfect opportunity to build her self-confidence.
She said that she chose her Beauty with a Purpose Project, having realized that the two major chronic diseases that Guyana is faced with are Cardiovascular and Diabetes and they account for the top one and four causes of death in Guyana. Her project specifically focuses on developing a healthy diet and physical lifestyle in order to prevent these diseases.  She has already started and promises to continue executing events and bring about awareness to her purpose in order to benefit her community and country as a whole. Her aim is to reduce the number of persons with chronic diseases in Guyana.

NAME: JOELLY ANN VALENTINE
Region 5
Beauty with a Purpose Platform: Strengthening Families: Nurturing Parent-Child Relationships

Joelly said that she saw the Miss World Guyana Pageant as a vital stage that can be used to start a national dialogue about her Beauty with a Purpose Platform and help to create programmes aimed at fostering this cause nationally.
Joelly said that while researching her Platform, she found that families are the smallest yet the most influential unit within society and that parents remain the anchor of this group and their input in many instances determine who their child/children are. She said that research has proven that good parenting produces stable, well-rounded children while in contrast, the results of bad parenting are poor mental and emotional state in children.
“My campaign seeks to promote positive parenting styles in an effort to minimize social issues that stem from a weak family structure, focusing mainly on the parent-child relationship. I have collaborated with the Childcare and Protection Agency and will be hosting workshops, conferences and distributing literature on positive parenting throughout the country,” she said.

NAME: THAMESHA WATSON
Region 6
Beauty with a Purpose Platform: Prevention of Teen Suicide in Guyana
Thamesha believes that being a part of the Miss World Guyana Competition opens a window of opportunities and provides a forum in which will allow her to build new relationships and form strategic alliances with others. She said that she has since developed her public speaking skills, and enhanced her fundraising capabilities.
When asked how she would use her platform for the development of her community and her country, she said that by creating extensive awareness on the issue and by implementing effective measures to help curb the intensity of teen suicide, she is sure that she will be able to positively contribute to the reduction of the number of suicide victims and suicide attempts.  Watson added that she would use her platform to learn more about issues affecting teenagers in Guyana, speak out about these issues and her purpose, form networks and conduct creative community activities that would be beneficial to all.

NAME: ARIELL GHANIE
Region 7
Beauty with a Purpose Platform: Alleviation of Child Hunger in Underprivileged Regions of Guyana
The name of Ariell’s campaign is “Feed the Future” with the message being “Hunger is not an issue of charity, it is an issue of justice”.
Ariell said that being part of the pageant was not a decision made overnight. “It was a dream of mine for many years now and I have been preparing since then.  I didn’t to enter this competition to hear I am beautiful and wear fancy clothes, but to make friendships that will last a lifetime and to be able to make a difference since this is the only pageant with the Beauty with a Purpose segment”, Ghanie said.
Ariell said that according to the UNICEF Situation Analysis of Women and Children in Guyana October 2016, 47.5% of Children 16 years and Younger are living in Poverty in Guyana. As such, she believes that it is her duty as a humanitarian to reduce this number by feeding children and assisting adults in acquiring a skill that will help them to provide for their families. Without the right nutrients, the brain cannot develop resulting in long-term effects on learning abilities.

NAME: CRYSTAL WILLS
Region 8
Beauty with a Purpose Platform: Child sexual abuse

Crystal admits that she had been following pageantry for years and has particularly had an interest in the Miss World Pageant. She said that seeing so many beautiful young ladies do great things, show off their talent and doing things they love has always inspired her.
Speaking about her Beauty with a Purpose Platform, Crystal said that child sexual abuse is more rampant in society than many may think and this actually damages the lives of many persons. She said that she is going to use her beauty with a purpose platform to develop her community and country, by first educating people about this issue and this will help them to be more aware of it.
Secondly, she said that she will work towards healing and protecting people that suffer from this social ill. “This way, they will be able to actually move forward and begin to do great things. Hence, we would have better people in society and people that are free and not scared to make their country a more child-friendly, free and safer place,” Crystal said.

Name: Manisha Mai-Lee Wong
Region 9
Beauty with a Purpose Platform:  Alleviating Hunger and Malnutrition, focusing on children in impoverished/under developed communities of Guyana.

Manisha plans to use the Miss World Guyana platform to raise awareness on the issue of Hunger and Malnutrition in children living in impoverished communities. She has chosen Agriculture as the weapon to combat these issues.
Currently, she is working on a community project in Region 9 to generate a farm; the crops produced on this farm will be used to create food hampers that will be distributed through selected primary schools on a monthly basis. She hopes to help her community be a model for other communities, showing that through this initiative people can begin to promote health and wellness, combat poverty, eradicate hunger and promote community cohesiveness to aid our nation’s future and asset their families in caring for them.
Most importantly, she wishes to create a movement that aims to promote youth empowerment. These goals, she said, are directly in line with the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations for developing countries.

Name: Nitifah Wendy Thompson
Region 10
Beauty with a Purpose Platform:  Sexual Abuse.
The Miss World Guyana 2017 competition, has taught Nitifah the importance of time management and self-love, and has also introduced her to the teachings of various philosophers as well as the importance of applying philosophy to her daily life. She said that she also got to learn about some classical music which has now become part of her life.
Nitifah said that she will use her campaign to create awareness, empowerment, and education and also provide counseling for children who suffered from sexual abuse. She believes that this will serve as a realization in her community and people will know the importance of reporting and protecting their children. “It will aid in stopping sexual abuse in the country and the world in general. The smaller the number of children that are being abused sexually, then there will be a smaller amount of children being diagnosed with psychological illnesses, and fewer children will commit suicide or run away from their homes. This will develop our community because children will know how to protect themselves, they will be heard and justice will prevail,” she said.