Johannesburg - Miss, Mr & Mrs Deaf South Africa crowned six new national titleholders, and four awards were presented to the contestants who got the highest score in the three divisions on the glorious evening of Saturday, September 3, at the Playhouse Company in Durban.
The prestigious ceremony saw last year’s titleholders, Megan Holmes (Mrs Deaf SA 2021), Chanika Viljoen (Miss Deaf SA 2021) and Darren Archer (Mr Deaf SA 2021), crown their successors at the end of their year of reign at the closing-off event.
With many contestants vying for the coveted titles, Kereese Kuppan from Johannesburg took the win for the ‘Miss’ category.
Winning the title in the ‘Mrs’ category was Annamarie Matthysen from Pretoria, while Christo Lourens from Cape Town won the ‘Mr’ title.
Miss, Mr & Mrs Deaf South Africa organisation revealed the essence of this beauty pageant promotes confidence to contestants.
“This pageant is not a typical beauty pageant, with a greater percentage of our judging completed before the judges even see the beautiful contestants. MDSA highlights advocacy for the deaf community through this pageant. MDSA promotes confidence to contestants and aims to drive them to achievement through our initiatives.
“A powerful vehicle we use to build their communication, leadership and interaction skills is through publicity week, fully sponsored by our host sponsor Tourism Friendly, and this year 30 companies under their banner. Our contestants are indeed envisioned to be the leaders of tomorrow for the deaf community.”
Other highlights of the journey include that finalists, under the auspices of Tourism Friendly and MDSA, had a social media reach of 2.5 million for sponsors of the event.
Faeem Karodia won the social media special award and walked away with prizes worth R20 000.
This legacy initiative serves to amplify the voice of the deaf in the form of an annual MDSA pageant which enables the finalists to experience a transformational journey through leadership development, personal development and skills development programmes.
Since July 2018, MDSA has been successfully run by an 80% deaf directorship: Janice Davies Jonker (CEO), Jean-mari Cornelius (finance), Andre Chetty, Coreza Buys and their hearing director, Nelius du Preez. MDSA embarked on a #NewEra since 2018.