Miss Petite Teen South Africa Finalist 2017

CAYLA VAN EEDEN - Miss Petite Teen South Africa 2017 Finalist

The Miss Junior SA Pageant and the Mimi Foundation have entered into a partnership that will see the latter become the charity of choice in the annual beauty pageant.

As part of the competition, each Miss Junior SA regional finalist will raise funds as well as public and media awareness of the Mimi campaign to provide sanitary pads to more than three million South African schoolgirls.  Each month these girls from disadvantaged communities are in danger of having to skip several days of school for the lack of something most girls take for granted:  sanitary pads.

Carolyn Baldwin Botha, the Pageant Director of Miss Junior South Africa adds, “The Miss Junior SA Pageant concept is unique compared to other pageants.  The mission, vision and objectives of the pageant are aimed at instilling in contestants the importance of uplifting people in our local communities, building community pride, promoting intercultural understanding and increasing external appreciation and support of the problems these communities face.  In addition, beauty pageants are about breaking stereotypes and raising awareness of feminine issues”.

The involvement of the Miss Junior SA contestants in Mimi will be more hands on than just a “meet and greet in a pretty sash”.  They will be required to sell at least 50 packs of Mimi Sanitary Pads to be eligible to compete for the overall title and Miss Charity.  Each participant will be allocated a unique community; they must visit at least one school each month to educate girls on menstruation and the values that Mimi stand for; they must drive a parallel educational social media campaign to help raise awareness of the need for affordable pads in South Africa.

Contestants will also proudly participate in 16 Days of Activism Against the Abuse of Women and Children from the 25^th of November to the 10^th of December 2016.

As a regional finalist I will have to launch a personal campaign of awareness that includes video recording my thoughts as well as the public’s thoughts on 16 Days of Activism.  I will also be creating a street poster campaign, as well as speaking to and educating the youths on the struggles many girls experience every day.

Below are some highlights from my projects during the 16 Days of Activism.

As a Regional Finalist, I was required to host a Mimi 16 Days of Activism, Mother-Daughter Brunch on Saturday, 3 December 2016.

We had to create our own information packs on Mimi and the need for affordable sanitary towels in SA to hand to our guests. We also had to create post-event publicity for the initiative and event.  This was an amazing project and I would like to thank each and every person who was involved in making it such a successful event!

After months of hard work and fundraising with the support of my brother and amazing friends, Charnè van Eeden & Amy Storey, we were able to sponsor all the girls at John Wesley Children's Home with enough Mimi packs for an entire year! Also, a big thank you to Spur for hosting our fundraiser evenings.