‘Miss Africa Crown Contest’ planned

Deepkamal Kaur

Advertisement

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 4

If the Punjabi community has been spreading its wings offshores by holding Miss Punjaban contests in South Africa, Malaysia or in Canada, the nearly 1000-plus African students settled in Jalandhar and Phagwara are intending to hold a gala event titled "Miss Africa Crown Contest in Punjab" this month.

Girls from Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia and other countries of world’s second most populous continent, taking various professional courses in the educational institutes here, have plans to participate in the pageant being collectively organised at a hotel here on December 23. The girls have already started rehearsing for their mega ramp show donning Rafia skirts, judo jackets and stylish hats representing their culture.

The organisers of the event, who are students of Lovely Professional University, have even started distributing entry forms to the nearly 500 African girls in Jalandhar and around for a pre-selection round to be held at a mall here on December 13.

Grace Kayembe, one of the organisers, quipped, “Studying and having spent three to four years here away from our home across the oceans, our life sometimes becomes drab. This pageant is just to come alive, have lots of fun together and strengthen our bonding with people from own community”.

The students, who are collecting forms at the varsity campus, have also come up with a Facebook page to popularise the event. The posters for the event too are being put up outside the institutes where students from Africa are studying in Punjab.

Joel Vumi, also an organiser, pitched in, “Our idea is also to spread communal harmony, oneness and a greater need for mixing of students of various nationalities so that they understand our culture well and realise that we are fun-loving and peace-loving people”.