Guyana reigned supreme in its very first participation at the recently hosted Miss United Nations 2012 Pageant where local beauty 22-year-old Soyini Fraser won the title.
Soyini said she is still in the process of absorbing her newfound status and is using her victory to promote Guyana internationally. “I want to let persons know that this is the tourist destination of South America. You come here and we have so much to offer you. Great culture; we’re exploding with talent and we have lots of natural resources out there for all the nature lovers to come and explore,” she stated.
The glowing new queen sat down with The Scene recently and spoke about her exciting journey of bringing home the international crown.
“I was confident that my team and I had worked very hard… so I wanted to, not so much for me, but for them and for Guyana because we deserve the publicity on an international scale… I felt so honoured to know that I could make my people so proud. They were begging for something like this for a long time and I have actually been a part of the experience for them,” Soyini shared.
Soyini travelled to Miami, Florida on July 5 and the competition immediately kicked off with the Talent Segment.
“They gave us a couple of hours to just recuperate, unpack, get to meet each other, socialize a bit and at 6 o’clock we had our orientation, then at 8 o’clock we had our first competition which was the Talent… it was go, go, go,” Soyini said.
She explained that she performed a dance as her talent piece to the song “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins because she felt it captured what the United Nations was about. “It’s about charity, uniting countries as one global body and promoting tourism,” she said.
Missing wardrobe
Soyini indicated that she experienced a few bumps along the way with one completely frustrating example of losing her entire wardrobe.
“There were quite a few difficulties. One evening, my entire suitcase went missing. I heard about these things in pageants but I didn’t think it would reach that far. We had preliminaries the evening and I left to get something and when I returned, my cart was missing with my suitcase and belongings for the competition… It was found in [another contestant’s] room and she claimed that she only rested there to go get dinner. She gave some flimsy excuse,” the queen recalled. She said she managed to overcome the dramatic encounter with the contestant, who she preferred not to name.
The pageant, she explained, took place over a three-day span which saw intense competition among the 52 contestants which eventually boiled down to 20 in the final. “After every competition, they automatically eliminated some contestants, which basically had a batch of us left and from that, they drew the top three,” she explained.
Soyini said the competition had no final question segment but instead created an interview portion which was worth 40% of the score. The evening gown segment, she said, was 20%, the offstage judging was 20%, the talent segment was 10% and another 10% went to the international costume segment.
An optional competition, she added, was the talent piece. “I know when something is optional, it is not really optional, it is compulsory because they want to make sure that whoever ends up with the crown doesn’t only know how to speak or model but they can actually showcase a passion of theirs,” she noted. Soyini said this segment was well participated in by contestants with some rather interesting pieces but in the end, Miss Guadeloupe walked away with the prize for this segment.
“She sang a French song and played the guitar and she was really, really good. She has a nice voice. Miss Jamaica also did an interesting piece with fire. She had a tray with flames on her head and she juggled… it was interesting. The room was dark and the only thing you could see was the fire,” she recalled.
Soyini said she also competed in what was dubbed the ‘High Fashion’ competition during which each contestant was required to have a high fashion piece that best suited their body and their personality.
“My high fashion piece was designed by Mwanza Glenn and it was entitled ‘That Blinking Funeral’. I loved it. I wore this piece the weekend before for a fashion show and it fit me perfectly,” she said.
Soyini further stated that the evening gown segment was the last competition and she described her dress as buttercup yellow in colour. It was designed by Roger Gary. “I was the only one in a yellow dress,” she added.
Instead of swimsuits, Soyini said, the girls were decked out in sports wear and were judged on their tone and the way they displayed the garment. “They are trying to show that not every pageant has to have a swimsuit segment because of the controversy in that area… they wanted to see how you walk on the catwalk with not only a high fashion outfit but regular, everyday wear,” she noted.
Real rocks
Really interesting, Soyini continued, was the national costume segment which saw some very beautiful pieces. Hers, she noted, was designed by Olympia Small-Sonaram, and was entitled ‘Guyana’s Dream’. She explained that it displays Kaieteur Falls at the front and the Kissing Bridge of the Botanical Gardens at the back. The colours, she added, were of the Coat of Arms at the front and that of the Guyana flag at the back.
“It actually showed three dimensions because what [Olympia] did, she airbrushed it and then she added things to it. My costume actually had rocks, real rocks on the front where Kaieteur Falls is and the Golden Frog which is only native to the Kaieteur Falls and a few other hints that can only be found in these areas and everyone loved it. It was different. It was interesting,” she explained.
When asked about why she thought she was able to outshine the other delegates, a gleaming Soyini said that she did not discriminate against anyone and ensured that she carried herself like a true queen while sharing her visions if named Miss UN 2012.
“I would sit at a table with the Spanish girls knowing fully well that I speak no Spanish and laugh and gaff with anybody so I was friendly with everyone. They liked what I would be using my crown to do, not only in Guyana, but internationally if given the opportunity and I think this pageant is known for giving underplayed nations a chance to showcase their country on an international level so maybe they just thought it was time for Guyana,” she posited.
Soyini said many of the contestants may have lost sight of why they were in the pageant and this might have caused them great loss in the offstage judging segment of the pageant. She noted that many local designers lent her their signature pieces to use during the pageant which helped her to be unique and gave her an extra boost. Among these persons are Ryan Berkley, Meleesa Payne, Olympia Small-Sonaram, Sonia Noel and Mwanza Glenn.
“A lot of the girls would go down in a flip-flops and shorts. You are at a beauty pageant. They don’t care about what you look like on a regular day. They want a glammed up person and that’s what most of the girls didn’t realize. I never stepped out without my makeup fully done and without my hair set or never without at least 6 inches on my feet… and then too, when you are in a foreign land, you never know who you are talking to. No matter how ridiculous they are, you must be respectable because later you may see them sitting on the judging panel,” she noted.
Mental fortitude
According to Soyini, in order to compete and be successful in pageantry, tremendous mental fortitude is needed. “A lot of the [contestants] try to break you mentally and once you break someone’s thinking and their mind, you cannot overcome them. But I didn’t allow anyone to discourage me, no matter how negative their comments were. I stayed focus and I was working towards my goals every day,” she said.
Soyini described the final moments before being crowned as nerve-wracking as she recalled not even realizing that she had won even after her country was called.
“I was listening to them announce the special prizes… and I am there thinking ‘Seriously? I didn’t get any of these?’ and then they called the second runner-up, Miss Dominican Republic, then the first runner-up was Miss Trinidad and there I am looking down the line wondering if it was Miss Australia, or Miss Russia or Miss Mexico and then they said the winner of the Miss United Nations pageant 2012 is Guyana, I was left standing and Miss Trinidad said ‘You’ and I’m like ‘oh yeah’. I did not even realize I was Miss Guyana, I was so shocked,” Soyini said with a giggle.
The queen said her victory in this pageant has provided her with a bigger platform to talk about her passions such as domestic violence, caring for the elderly, orphans in Guyana and also boosting Guyanese women’s self esteem.
She also now has many international engagements in countries such as China, Jamaica, Africa and the US. Additionally, the local beauty has been spotted by several international modelling agencies which she chooses to remain tightlipped about until she fulfils her duties as Miss UN 2012. She said she will consider accepting offers from such agencies in a couple of months.
Soyini thanked her mother Debra Fraser, Agri Parts, Commerce Cambio, Stanford Solomon, Bonny’s Supermarket, Nikini Productions and Holland’s Entertainment – Mr and Mrs Holland who have has been very supportive.
While in the US, Soyini visited the UN Guyana office and the UN Headquarters which was very exciting. She said she met lots of Guyanese who were excited to know that she had emerged a winner of such a pageant. The Guyanese community, she said, namely Sandhills, the Hill and Denise Creole Corner, hosted several events for her and she thanked them “for their support while I was there. They made me feel very comfortable.”
Franchise Holder Carwyn Holland told this newspaper that the contestant who was initially selected to compete in the Miss UN 2012 pageant, second runner-up in Miss Guyana World 2011 Utieka John, had not submitted the necessary documents before the deadline and as such, Soyini was asked to take her place.
