By Seleoe Nonyane
Miss Culture Lesotho is a beauty pageant whose primary goal – as the name suggests – is to promote culture and tourism in the country and abroad. The purpose of the pageant is to afford the youth opportunities to make their contribution in cultural preservation and to reward their effort.
Aubrey Silinyana, a South African film industry development facilitator who works with Basotho in the film industry development said the first Miss Culture Pageant was held in Leribe in 2018.
“We applied for a license from the Beauty Pageant Association of Lesotho to include the Miss Culture Lesotho pageant in the list of activities that are part of the King Moshoeshoe Film Festival. Since 2019 our company has been running the pageant and its programmes, together with my colleague Rantsatsi Mokeki. He is our national programmes coordinator. It is also our responsibility to coordinate the activities of the pageant.
“We took the responsibility to run the pageant from Mr Tlali Tlali in 2019 after it was staged in 2018 in Leribe. It was in that event in Leribe that our reigning queen Miss Reatile Molefe was crowned,” Silinyana said.
As a result of being crowned Miss Culture Lesotho in 2018, Reatile automatically qualified to be part of the Miss Culture International Pageant 2021 which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa last month.
Reatile came up against contestants from other countries such as Zimbabwe, Eswatini and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Reatile performed very well during the pageant as she managed to be in the top six. As a result, she was able to make it to the top three and broke through to snatch the second runner up position.
In an interview with theReporter this week, Molefe said she joined the pageantry from a very young age.
“I joined beauty pageantry at the age of eight in 2009. My first pageant was with Little Miss Lesotho Companies. I was also crowned queen in 2012 at New Millennium Primary then proceeded to Lesotho High School where I was also crowned Miss Lesotho High School 2017. I hold 13 titles including the new Miss Culture International second princess title.”
She describes herself as a bubbly person who originally comes from Malimong Ha Ntlama in the Berea district but currently resides at Lower Thamae in Maseru; she hopes to study further.
Reatile noted that she is currently furthering her studies at Mon-Tech Institute where she is doing Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety.
Detailing on the pageantry industry, Reatile said she is not really faced with a lot of challenges but raised her concerns about favouritism, saying “knowing that a certain contestant actually deserved the crown instead of the favoured one always breaks my heart.”
She also said the reason why she got involved in pageantry was to gain more self- confidence due to some insecurities she had from a tender age. That taught her to stand her ground and contributed in making her a role model to her peers and the little children.
Although the winners have not yet been allocated any social responsibilities, she is planning to start projects on tourism and culture.
She could not divulge the specific projects which are in the pipeline.
She is hoping to realise her dreams of competing in the Miss World pageant and advancing her education.
