Lush Africa brings Mrs Culture Malawi

Lush Africa Foundation, organisers of the Miss Culture beauty contest, have added a new platform on their pageant portfolio, Mrs Culture Malawi.

The Mrs Culture Malawi will be competed for by married women, divorcees and widows. Eligible participants will be aged between 25 and 50 and of any body size, according to the organisers.

Lush Africa coordinator Lorraine Kljajic said the Mrs Culture Malawi will run side by side with the Miss Culture contest and they  expect to bring together 15 participants, out of which 10 will participate in the Miss Culture and five in the Mrs Culture Malawi contest.

“The Miss Culture is an all body size inclusive pageant. The beauty of the ladies differs in different cultures and we appreciate and take that into consideration when choosing our participants. We don’t mind whether they are curvy or slender. The same notion will be applied in this contests,” she said.

The organisers said Mrs Culture Malawi will increase their capacity to empower women in areas of entrepreneurship and business training by creating mentors to act as role models to young girls.

Kljajic said she is hopeful that more women will come forward to register for the contest.

She said: “The Miss Culture is a non-bikini pageant. That should help us beat the societal stereotyping that is associated with beauty pageants. This is why even the prizes that we give out to the winners are focused on empowering women to leave a lasting impact on their lives.”

Since the inception of the Miss Culture pageant in 2021, the winners have been offered scholarships through their partnership with Exploits University.

“We are thinking of business funding and business coaching. We want to come up with a free e-commence website for their businesses,” she said.

This is not the first time for the country to host a contest of such a nature. In 2010 Malawi hosted Matofotofo beauty pageant which was meant to celebrate the fuller figures.

Winner of the contest Florence Banda says much as the contest was new and challenging, she is still benefitting from the network, confidence and skills that she built 13 years ago from her participation.

She said: “These kind of contests boost self-belief in women because it is a platform where you build or learn presentation skills. These skills can help in business and even sourcing funds for any initiative you make.”