The search for the most beautiful and ambitious woman on the Universe is here. According to a release from the Miss Universe National Director, auditions for Miss Universe Botswana will be held at the Grand Palm Hotel on the 4-5 August from 08.00 until 5pm.
The auditions are open for all young women aged between 18 and 26 years. The women must never have been married nor ever have given birth to a child, nor be a parent. Registration and processing fee is a non-refundable P250.
The competition promises to be a thriller. Sixteen women will be selected to feature in the finals so that the competition coincides with the nation’s Vision 2016. The winner of the recent Miss Vision 2016 competition, Boipelo Mbakile, has automatically qualified for the 2012 Miss Universe Botswana competition meaning that 15 spots are up for grabs.
Top 5 has been improved to Top 6 and one lucky finalist will have a Top 6 spot via public vote, which will be done through social media via the Miss Universe Botswana Facebook group and SMS. This means that all the citizens and residents of Botswana will play a role in selecting their universal queen who will go and represent Botswana in the USA. The ultimate goal is to put Botswana on the map and highlight Botswana as a top tourist destination and an investment opportunity. To achieve this, Miss Universe Botswana will take advantage of Miss Universe as the biggest beauty pageant brand in the world with a global audience of millions of TV viewers yearly.
Because Miss Universe Botswana aims to empower young women and give them something that cannot be taken away from them, which is the difference between Miss Universe Botswana and other pageants, the Miss Universe Botswana 2012 queen wins a scholarship to go to school in New York at the prestigious New York Institute of Technology and a modelling shot at Ford Models also in New York.
Targeting primarily the US market, the queen will also work closely with the Botswana embassies in Washington and New York to help push Botswana’s agenda in terms of marketing Botswana as the ultimate tourist and investment destination regionally and, more ambitiously, globally.
Meanwhile the Miss Universe Botswana ‘I Am the Change’ campaign continues where the current Miss Universe Botswana, Larona Kgabo, and her team talk to teenagers in senior secondary schools about behaviour change issues with the target topics including ‘Alcohol & Substance Abuse’ and ‘HIV/AIDS Spread at Youth Level.’
The organizers have requested all the relevant stakeholders to come on board as some of the objectives of Miss Universe Botswana cannot be met without their partnerships and support.
