The choreographer of the Miss Black Africa Pageant, Dawn Diergaardt, suffered an unexpected stroke minutes before the pageant started and had to be urgently rushed to hospital. Diergaardt is a popular stylist and fashion designer. Nevertheless, the pageant went ahead to select Libertine Hangula as the first-ever Miss Black Africa.
Hangula is a third-year Human Resources Management student at Lingua College. The first princess is Petrina Mathews, a second-year Logistics and Supply Chain Management student at the Polytechnic of Namibia while the third princess is Aini Kandongo, a second-year psychology student at the University of Namibia. “We’re proud ourselves for this marathon and first-ever beauty pageant staged by four-times champions, Black Africa’s Supporters’ Club. We’re further proud of ourselves that we could attract a crop of top quality, young and beautiful girls, who have bright futures ahead of them with great aspirations to become responsible citizens as fulltime students. They will gain great exposure through the BA brand, which will ultimately add great value as their individual contributions to the bigger economy of Namibia,” Doreen Lamperth, chairperson of the Black Africa Supporters’ Club said. The event took place on Friday at Eros Primary School. The judges were Mara Baumgarten, Salim King and Lorraine Kondombolo.