From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Mon Jun 08 2009 - 18:31:38 EDT
Written by Senai Solommon
Monday, 08 June 2009
Selam Mahdi - Miss Africa Denmark 2009
Miss Africa Denmark 2009 is none other than our very own YPFDJ member;
Selam Mahdi!!
There has been a long outdoor, tv and radio campaign about the Miss
Africa contest this year and Selam Mahdi was one out of the 14 finalist
that were chosen for the event.
Miss Africa Denmark is not, as some may think a beauty contest.
Miss Africa is an African woman with talent, charisma, leadership and
presentation skills, a woman that knows her motherlands culture, history
and tradition but also is well integrated in the Danish society and
thereby has the ability to be a rollemodel for Africa in Denmark.
About 2000 witnesses saw 19 year old Selam Mahdi represent Eritrea and
Sudan and of course YPFDJ. Selam started out by presenting herself, her
background, ongoing education, her visions to work in Eritrea and how
her membership in the organization YPFDJ have made her the
self-confident, strong and conscious person that they were looking at
and how she were planning to increase the knowledge about the situation
in Africa.
Selam took the audience by storm when she performed "Fighters of Africa"
(A remixed version of "Fighters of Eritrea") and from there the race was
more or less over for the rest of the competitors. When she answered
cleverly to the question about "whether she would like to move to her
motherland in the future" by saying that she was Eritrean and a Dane and
therefore would like to use that role as a bridge between both countries
and for that reason did not see herself move to Eritrea permanently, but
would move back and forth in order to use her abilities and
opportunities for the betterment of the development inside Eritrea and
the survival of the Eritrean identity and community in Denmark she
portrayed her thoughtfulness and ability to answer political and social
questions.
Eritrea has now won two out of four Miss Africa competitions in Denmark
(the event started in 2006) despite being a very little, almost unknown
minority in Denmark. This shows the Eritrean communities strength and
ability to continuously create young and dynamic Eritreans that are able
to be role models wherever they are.
Selam Mahdi will the next 12 months serve as the official rollemodel and
culture ambassador for Africa in Denmark and will participate in a lot
of PR events, receptions as a keynote speaker and will be the voice of
not only the Eritrean community and YPFDJ, but the continent of Africa
as a whole in Denmark.
Watch links below:
http://programmer.tv2.dk/go/seneste/index.php/nodeId-22876794.html
(watch her on Good morning Denmark this morning - clips of her doing
"awet n'hafash" and singing included)
http://www.dr.dk/NETTV/Update/Forside.htm
(scroll down on the evening news headlines on national tv to the right)
http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/video/index.php/nodeId-22848277.html
(9 o'clock news about the competition)
Check out more video's and pictures on www.missafrica.dk
See Selam Mahdi sing her song "hidri" on www.youngpfdj.com
http://alenalki.com/index.php?option=com_content
<http://alenalki.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5746&Item
id=1> &task=view&id=5746&Itemid=1
<http://alenalki.com/images/stories/June-2009/selam_winner.jpg>
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