• Education

Brains, sweat and sashes

Mariselle Stofberg



On 4 June the much-antici­pated Chamber of Choirs ­competition and second Standard Bank Miss High School pageant took place at Maerua Mall in Windhoek.

Eight stunning young ladies took to the stage in casual wear, recycle wear and evening gowns, which left both the judges and the crowd thoroughly entertained.

These girls not only strutted their stuff on the runway, but put in real effort and hard work with their various community projects, which ranged from housework, to building classrooms, helping animals and assisting the elderly.

Reigning Miss Windhoek High School, Reschelle Beukes, was not only crowned as the new Standard Bank Miss High School, but also received the Miss Community Project award for her work done at Mount View High School in Windhoek.

“I believe this title will help me to further build on the success of this project. I feel so excited, humble and I truly believe that each one of these beautiful and stunning girls deserved this title. Not only did I learn so much, but I made some amazing friends along the way,” said Beukes. She has made great progress with her project and has, with the help of sponsors, built a containerised classroom and donated school stationery.

Tylo Blaauw from Windhoek Gymnasium was crowed as the first princess and Judite Correia from Walvis Bay Private High School as second princess.

Correia was also awarded the Miss Creative Wear and Miss Personality awards. Sylvi Iipinge from Shaanika Nashilongo Secondary School won Miss Social Media.

This year the competition aimed to not only showcase the beauty of the contestants, but to encourage the passionate ladies to invest in the community as well.

“This is a night full of glitz, glamour, brains and hearts as big as the Namib Desert,” said Yochanaan Coetzee, the master of ceremonies of the evening.

Every contestant had a certain community project that formed a part of their journey at Standard Bank Miss High School.

A whopping 75% of their final scores came from the work done they had done on their projects. This also proved the deciding factor between the top four contestants.

The judging panel included Sindano Nekundi from Standard Bank, Josephine Silas from Coca-Cola, reigning Miss Namibia, Selma Kamanya, and renowned singer and choirmaster Joe Besser.

“Tonight is more than just a pageant. It is beauty with a purpose, with these stunning, intelligent girls,” said Kamanya.

Standard Bank awarded the winner a N$10 000 cash prize to use as she sees fit.

“This competition is exactly in line with our corporate social responsibility goals and we would like to remain a part of this competition in the future,” said Nekundi.