Miss World 2014, Rolene Strauss of South Africa, Chairman of the Miss World Organisation Julia Morley and a team are expected to visit Guyana early next year.
The main objective of the visit is to advance projects related to the prevention of domestic violence in Guyana by providing critical funding for various initiatives established to end the scourge.
By winning the beauty with a purpose segment of the Miss World competition, Miss Guyana World, Rafieya Husain managed to arrange a visit of a team to Guyana.
For this competition, contestants were judged on the basis of the value they have added to society and for the first time ever, there was not one but five winners declared for the competition namely Guyana, Indonesia, India, Brazil and Kenya, outshining some 117 other beauties from across the globe.
The Anna Regina, Essequibo, born young beauty grew up in Georgetown, before relocating to the United States at age 11. She is currently a third-year Business Administration student.
Husain’s platform for the competition was domestic violence and she has been working to highlight the scourge, bringing awareness to people about the implications domestic violence victims face. She revealed that she was once a victim of domestic violence, which motivated her to take an active stand against the societal scourge.
In October, Husain commissioned a $3 million outreach centre in Three Friends Village, Essequibo Coast, Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) to aid of the fight against domestic violence.
In the same month, Husain visited several secondary schools in Georgetown, where she spread awareness about the dangers of teen dating violence (TDV), which is also part of her “Shatter the Silence” campaign.
The beauty queen through several fundraising events raised some $4 million, of which a portion went to spreading cheer to children at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
A donation was also made to the Guyana Red Cross and Guyana Help and Shelter.
She also secured a plot of land in Region Two and renovated a building in the area to create an outreach centre intended to provide advocacy, education and preventative measures to help families and communities live in harmony, and ultimately end domestic abuse.