After two years running ‘Miss East Africa UK’ beauty pageant, its founders have not only launched its male version but have also announced the birth of ‘Mr and Miss East Africa’ pageant that will cover the East African Community partner states: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. Accordingly, pageant founder Pauline Long says Kenya will be the first host of the ‘Mr & Miss East Africa’ event on December 6, 2008. OGOVA ONDEGO reports.
Saying that both the ‘Miss East Africa UK’ beauty pageant and its newly-born ‘Mr East Africa UK’ version will be a voice for the children in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes Region countries–Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi–the London-based, Kenya-born Long adds, “My end goal with these pageants is to lift every single East African child in need out of poverty, take them out of the streets and engage in campaigns that will help change people’s attitudes towards our children. It will be a matter of persuading the governments of the East African Community to turn their countries into welfare states for children.”
Asked why there was a need to introduce the “Mr East Africa UK” pageant, Long says, “having more voices to represent East African children is better than having only one voice. It’s all about rallying up as many people as possible to get involved on the campaigns.”
The objectives of the Mr East Africa UK, like those of its female counterpart, Long says, are to raise funds and awareness on the plight of underprivileged children in the eastern African nations.
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The Miss East Africa UK 2008 and the first ever Mr East Africa UK, that Long refers to as a ‘grand double crowning event’, is scheduled for July 26, 2008 at Bloomsbury Theatre, London. The chief guest will be Dame Kelly Holmes.
Long says this event will seek to raise funds to assist people who were displaced in the post-election violence in Kenya in January and February 2008.
