Meet from left to right (above) Matongo Limwanya, Hannah Lubinda and Mavis Mulyata. As you may know Zambia and Zimbabwe co-host the United Nations World Tourism Organization general assembly in the two countries in August 2013. Victoria Falls and Livingstone are the venues. Matongo and Hannah are on the organizing committee of the Miss Hope UNWTO 2013 pageant, in which ten girls will compete for the title in a final to be held in August 2013 at Sun International in Livingstone. Mavis, second placed in Miss Lusaka 2010, is one of the contenders for the title. The prize for the winner will apparently be a car and there is K10,000 (rebased) on offer as well. All three ladies were Guests on the most recent edition of the Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela. This was the last edition of the show in 2012.

Hannah, chair and main mover of the committee explained that the Miss Hope Foundation together with their partners DILab Africa would present a unique pageant concept that is positioned to complement the forthcoming general assembly. She said that the show has the financial backing of the Ministry of Tourism in Zambia, as well as several other commercial sponsors. Several Livingstone lodges and guest houses were also assisting. Contestants would be drawn from all parts of Southern Province in Zambia. Some of this country’s important musicians including Judy, Shyman, Sakala Brothers and Amayenge would be involved.

The music on our show was great, we opened with latest tracks from Ke$ha and Frank Ocean. Zambian tracks were from Bryan featuring PJ and the ever popular SlapDee. Milli Jam dropped numbers from Rihanna and Chris Brown (linked together even on our show!). Our oldie of the week was the obscure ‘There’s A Guy Down The Chip Shop Thinks He’s Elvis’ by the late Kirsty McColl and predictably no-one won the prize on offer for texting us the name of the performing artist. Our pick of the week was Killers – Miss Atomic Bomb and we closed with Redfoo’s ‘Bring Out The Bottle’.

The ladies told listeners that the committee were looking for girls with both beauty and brains for the pageant, and that contestants would receive education about HIV/Aids and cervical cancer as part of their participation. The judges would be looking for girls with confidence. “Who are the judges?” Milli Jam wanted to know, and Matongo explained that their names would be a closely guarded secret to avoid the corruption that had occurred in the past over such issues. We laughed though perhaps we should not have done! The contestants would gather together in a ‘boot camp’ prior to the final. Designers would be involved in dressing the finalists.

Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing in ten years’ time, Mavis said she would like to be a professional model ‘known out there’, Hannah said she would like to be a visionary promoted by big business to empower young Zambian girls, while Matongo said her ambition was for Hope Foundation to be known initially throughout Zambia and later internationally.

We wished the ladies the best of luck in their excellent initiative and took the chance to wish all our listeners the best for 2013.