Ms Faye made this remark at this year’s beauty contest held at Paradise Suites Hotel on Sunday. Fatou Jallow from the Gambia College was crowned the winner of the tertiary institutions while Awa Jammeh from Saint Joseph’s won the senior secondary category. The event, as usual, brought together top government officials, students and parents.
“It has been seven years since we started the scholarship pageant and tonight we are holding the sixth edition,” Minister Faye addressed the gathering. “In 2008, 100 girls competed in three categories from the upper basic, senior and tertiary level with three winners emerging in each group, a total of nine winners. All the contestants exhibited bravery, intelligence, eloquence and talent so well that President Jammeh awarded scholarship to all of them.
“The foresight of President Jammeh to come up with this whole broad pageant is traced to the Miss Black USA in The Gambia in 2006. With the president’s undivided attention and interest, profound support and inestimable intent to close the gender gap between men and women and boys and girls, the pageant has grown from strength to strength.
“Over the years, winners who have received scholarships continued to excel in fields chosen by them and an example of it, is Miss Ndey Oley Taal, who was recognised as the face of the West London College where she graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in fashion designing. Through the pageant, 15 young ladies are currently being sponsored at the UTG pursuing degrees in medicine, nursing, political science, sociology, and development studies and one is pursuing ACCA at the MDI and two others are at the GTTI. An additional four are studying abroad in the UK/USA with last year’s winner preparing to leave for a university in UK in January 2015. Some have graduated from the UTG and are already given employment.”
She added: “Indeed we must all reflect that the fundamentals on which the pageant has been founded seeks to empower girls and women to participate meaningfully in society and the economic returns of which is already visible and celebrated as part of the successes of the July 22 revolution.”
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