13 Feb 2023

Women have been encouraged to support each other. Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Beauty Manake made the call at the Miss Millennium 2023 High Tea in Mogoditshane on Saturday.

Manake commended those who had graced the event for sitting together around the table to discuss women’s issues.

She cautioned against the ‘pull her down’ syndrome and challenged women to change the narrative and support one another.

“We have to talk more about being biased towards women in every platform we get,” Manake said, adding “we need to get used to strong women and support them”.

She urged the organisers of the Miss Millennium pageant to register it, not only to attract more sponsorship, but advocate for a larger group of disadvantaged women across the country.

Genuine Fitness owner and health fanatic, Agatha Atlholang, whose company was one of the Ms Millennium 2023 sponsors, challenged women to know who they really were and urged them to not only base their worth on their achievements, educational backgrounds or the accolades they had. She said such sessions were important as they gave women an opportunity to encourage and uplift one another. 

Atlholang motivated women on social, physical, emotional, intellectual, occupational, spiritual and financial wellness, which she said were key areas of life that ought to be taken seriously for one to thrive. She said women needed to make their own money and not depend on others for their financial wellbeing as that could  result in abuse.

She also urged them to practice safe sex and choose partners wisely. 

Tebogo Lebotse Sebego, Woman of the year 2022, urged older women to have a positive bias towards younger women, saying ‘make those young girls feel good about themselves, mentor them and nourish them’

She appealed to older women to do volunteer work for communities they lived in.

On behalf of the sponsors, Mercy Thebe, a corporate communications architect, said they supported the pageantry because it offered a platform for women to celebrate diversity, talent and community building; values that resonated with their companies.

The High Tea collected toiletries which were donated to Ratong Centre, an NGO that provides shelter for women fleeing from abuse.

Miss Millennium 15^th edition, grand finale will be held at Millennium Jazz restaurant in Mogoditshane on February 18. Ends