Student Alliance for the Welfare of Africa marks post-COVID return with event
Coming out of a two year hiatus, SAWA has come back introducing a Royal African Pageant with auditions. PHOTO CREDIT: events.uri.edu
After being inactive for two years, the Student Alliance for the Welfare of Africa (SAWA) is hosting a Royal African Pageant at the end of the fall semester to celebrate African culture.
Kamolat Ibikunle, a fourth-year student majoring in health studies with a minor in gender and women’s studies and SAWA vice president, said that the goal of SAWA is to allow African students to share their culture and find community at the University of Rhode Island and that they hope to further this goal through the pageant.
“Our goal is just to make everyone feel comfortable and for those that know nothing about Africa to come in and learn more about it,” Ibikunle said.
Nadeerah Mayaleeke, a second-year student majoring in health studies and events chair for SAWA, said the idea for the pageant came from the Multicultural Student Services Center’s (MSSC) director, Jean D. Nsabumuremyi.
She said Nsabumuremyi spoke to an employee from the University of Idaho who mentioned how the University has been doing the pageant for a few years.
“He just brought the idea to us, and it was, at first, just a thought,” Mayaleeke said. “But we were like, we can really do this and we can really make this a beautiful effect and have culture be spread on this campus.”
According to Mayaleeke, auditions were held for three weeks, where candidates were asked about themselves, what they hoped to bring to the pageant and also gave a quick practice walk for the runway.
“This is not a beauty pageant, so there was no certain height or certain weights and look or anything like that,” Mayaleeke said. “You can come any shape, any size, any color. We’re just looking for African, we’re looking for people to represent the country and bring culture to this campus.”
According to Mayaleeke, there are currently 24 contestants, two of which are men, and around eight different African countries are represented by these students.
Mayaleeke said that they plan to hold the pageant on Dec. 10, with their eyes on Edwards hall as a venue or somewhere else with a big auditorium on campus.
Along with the actual pageant, which will consist of contestants showing off a traditional outfit, a sports outfit, an evening gown and then three judges voting, Mayaleeke said that they hope to get the attendees involved.
“We plan to do different activities with the audience,” Mayaleeke said. “We don’t just want the audience, like, sitting down and just watching, so we plan to have a raffle. We plan to have some type of decision when it comes to voting for which contestant they want to win. We do want the audience to be engaged as well.”
Ibikunle said that there will be two winners: one first-place winner from both the women’s and men’s sections. Both students who win are set to receive a crown, a sash and $250 for their accomplishments.
Both Ibikunle and Mayaleeke said that they hope for members of the URI community to support the pageant, regardless of their race or culture.
“Just because it is called the Royal African pageant doesn’t mean it’s limited to only Africans to come,” Ibikunle said. “The point of this is to spread culture throughout the campus. So obviously we want to gain other people’s audience. It’s welcome to everybody. You don’t have to be a certain race or certain culture to come. It’s open to everybody. It’s going to be a very nice night.”
More information and future updates about the pageant can be found on the group’s Instagram page @uri_sawa.