Miss Africa NJ pageant attracts two from Sierra Leone

Coming July 27, 2012, The Miss Africa New Jersey Beauty Pageant is intended to provide entertainment and enlightenment about African arts and culture to the audience. The organizers hope to make this empowering event an annual occasion.

Miss Africa NJ aims to bring together African women who are striving to achieve their goals, and wantsn to be able to bring them together to motivate each other. The Miss Africa NJ pageant organization states that being Miss Africa New Jersey is not only about having a pretty face or nice body, it’s about having goals and aspirations, as well as self confidence in any and everything that you desire to accomplish.

The two women representing Sierra Leone give a little background on themselves:

SALAMATU KUYATEH

Born on April 27, 1993, in Freetown, Sierra Leone of West Africa, I became the last added member of a six-child family of Shekubah Kuyateh and Elizabeth Kuyateh. In a country with little to scarce sources of income, my father embraced the hardships and ventured out to provide for us. My father had to leave us; a family of seven including my mom, when I was four years old to go and mine for diamonds to provide for the family, leaving my mother to care for herself and six children.

Six years after my father left during the second war in Sierra Leone, my family received news that my father was hospitalized with amputation of his ear and arm at the hands of the rebels. After the civil war, my mom immigrated to the United States with my cousin, whose hand was also amputated during the war. We were made to live with our grandmother and Aunt for ten years; not to mention the numerous challenges faced as a result; including dropping out of school for one year. I finally travelled to the United States with my three brothers in 2009 to join my mother, after living in Guinea with my Uncle for six months.

With the mindset that I want to continue being myself: a humble, caring, sweet, and outgoing person, I gladly greeted my new destiny in America; and I am very grateful to God for all He has done for me and for the opportunity to attend and graduate from High School. My dream is to make a better tomorrow for those who do not have the same luxuries and opportunities I have been given, and so I pray that with the title of Miss Africa New Jersey, this dream will become a reality.

AMINATA BANGURA

Born on October 18th, 1989 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa. At the age of two, her mother, Fatmata Conteh became a single parent. As a jobless single parent, she struggled to make ends meet, and to make sure that her daughter gets the best education possible. As a sicklier, Aminata was in and out of the hospital almost every month with doctors trying to save her life. She skipped grades as a child due to her poor health and lack of funding towards her education.

After the 1999 civil war in Sierra Leone, Aminata, her mother, cousins and Grandmother located to Conakry, Guinea; hoping to one day join her uncle in the U.S.A. After several years, Aminata relocated to her father’s side of the family in Banjul, Gambia; where she lived for years before coming to America in 2003. As a fourteen year old teenager in a foreign Country, she was bullied about her nappy hair, no swag (doesn’t know how to dress), and deep African accent. In spite of the bullying, her main focus was to make her parents proud by being the first (on both parents’ side) to graduate out of college. As a high school student, she worked as a tutor for Boys and Girls Club of America, a junior counselor for a summer camp called Total Child Development summer Camp.

As a former student of Bloomfield College, she served as a public relations officer and vice president of the Africa Student Association. In addition, she also served as a Commuters’ senator. She worked as an orientation leader and a note taker, taking notes for the disabled of Bloomfield College. As of today, Aminata is a student of New Jersey City University where she is a member the Peers Educating Peers Program, and a member of the Christian Fellowship Organization where she currently served as a treasurer. Her ultimate goal is to one day become a social worker, working with abused children and victims of domestic violence!

For further information on the July 27th event, go to:

http://missafricanj.com/index.html

Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!

---

© 2012, https:. All rights reserved.