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A 24-year-old mother of a “beautiful little girl” defeated four other contenders, including three other mothers, to win the Miss OSCO 2015 Phenomenal Woman crown in Owia Friday night.
“It feels great because I worked really hard for,” Shellicia Small, Miss Confident, told I-Witness News shortly after her crowing.
“I got a lot of push from people. A lot of people encouraged me and then I just took a brave mind, because I have never entered a pageant before,” said Small, who also won the Swimwear and Interview segments of the show.
One of her interview questions was about whether young mothers should be allowed to compete in beauty pageants.
“Being a young mother shouldn’t stop you from entering a beauty pageant,” said Small, who has a 2-year-old daughter.
“A beauty pageant is where someone showcases their talent. It also helps to build someone’s self-esteem and also their self-confidence. So, therefore, as a young mother taking part in a pageant, we all should use this opportunity as a stepping-stone to achieve certain goals in life.
“To me, personally, I will use this opportunity here tonight to better myself. I thank you,” Small, a bartender and secondary school graduate said to loud cheers from the crowd.
The pageant, organised by the Owia Sports and Cultural Organisation, came at the end of a week in which the Carnival Development Corporation said that it thinks the rule that bars mothers from competing in the Miss SVG pageant should stay in place.
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Small disagreed, saying, “I am young, yes, but I made a mistake. I don’t regret my daughter, but I had her at an early age. I don’t think it’s affecting me now,” she said, adding that the victory Friday night “might boost me up a little more” to enter other pageants.
The show was not a young mothers’ pageant, but organisers did not give consideration to whether the contestants were mothers.
Iesha Nanton, Miss Courageous was First Runner-up and Miss Congeniality.
Second Runner-up was Cherissa Nero, Miss Ambitious, who also adjudged Miss Photogenic.
Best Talent went to Renelle Lavia, Miss Zealous, who gave a soulful rendition of Jamaican artiste Etana’s “People Talk”.
Lavia greatly reduced her chance at the crown when she fumbled a question about how she would describe herself to a stranger.
Best Evening Wear went to Cozelle Boucher, Miss Driven.
The other contestants were Iesha Nanton, Miss Courageous, and Cherissa Nero, Miss Ambitious.
Friday’s show also included a “Soca Monarch” competition in which several North Windward residents impersonating the performances of local and regional soca act.
A youngster who impersonated Vincentian soca star Skinny Fabulous won this segment of the show.
The events were part of carnival celebration in Owia, which also included J’ouvert and a river lime later on Saturday.
A single mother, I’m sure. What a terrible role model for our young women!
A mountain of social science data shows that the best personal and collective life outcomes, including an enhanced life style and higher happiness level, are positively correlated with family form: unions based on the loving, stable, truthful, and faithful marital union between a man and a women are generally better off on a host of indices; they also produce children who are happier and more successful than the offspring of single mothers who beat about in life used and passed from one man to the next.
We are not teaching our women — or men — about what it takes to have a happy, productive, and fullfilling life.
I am not a prude who sees promiscuity as some kind of a mortal sin; I am a practical social scientist who knows that the evidence shows that promiscuity is a sure road to poverty and unhappiness.
These so-called beauty contests send the wrong message to our young people.
No, you are not a prude. And you should not even mention the word because what you said makes prude a non-sequitur. And to support what you said when you said: the evidence shows that promiscuity is a sure road to poverty and unhappiness, you just have to look around you to see it, feel it, and smell it.
We are hell-bent on immorality.