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The business of beauty

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Gugu Nyarenda (fourth from left) poses with former Miss Mpumalanga title holders: Natasha dos Santos (2014), Ntandoyenkosi Kunene (2013), Zamanene Nene (2015), Lungile Libambo (2012) and Mpumi Lephoko (2011)
Gugu Nyarenda (fourth from left) poses with former Miss Mpumalanga title holders: Natasha dos Santos (2014), Ntandoyenkosi Kunene (2013), Zamanene Nene (2015), Lungile Libambo (2012) and Mpumi Lephoko (2011)

Speaking to her in the dimly lit boardroom, Gugu Nyarenda comes across as being sensitive to gossip and negative public opinion, although she does not say so outright. It seems as if she prefers to be left alone.

Gugu Nyarenda’s office is hidden at the back of a building. One needs to walk towards a parking lot in the basement on Ferreira Street in Mbombela, Mpumalanga, to find it. Inside, the area is cramped and contains a small reception area, a kitchen, two offices and a boardroom.

Speaking to her in the dimly lit boardroom, Nyarenda comes across as being sensitive to gossip and negative public opinion, although she does not say so outright. It seems as if she prefers to be left alone.

However, this is not possible, given her role in raising the country’s profile through her events company, Mzimari Productions. The company’s online home page states that it was “created for the sole purpose of inspiring the social and cultural welfare of the Mpumalanga province”.

Nyarenda, through her company, initiated and conceptualised the Miss Mpumalanga brand in 2011 after a long hiatus of beauty pageants in the province. The last recognisable beauty queen to have come out of Mpumalanga was socialite Ayanda Mbuli in 1997.

The project was initially difficult to get off the ground because of a lack of funding and support. But Nyarenda was determined and, in just five years, she has succeeded in producing two high-profile beauty queens.

The first was Miss Mpumalanga 2011 Mpumi Lephoko from Pienaar outside Mbombela, who also clinched the Miss Tourism Universe title in 2015 – the first South African to do so.

The second is newly crowned Miss SA Ntandoyenkosi Kunene (23), who hails from the Mkhondo Local Municipality in Piet Retief in eastern Mpumalanga. Kunene was also crowned Miss Mpumalanga in 2013.

It has not been easy, maintains Nyarenda, recalling an embarrassing scenario on the night Lephoko was crowned in 2011. As she strutted on stage in a tight swimsuit dress, a “wardrobe malfunction” occurred, exposing the contestant’s buttocks to the audience. Despite this, she went on to win. But one headline referred to her as Miss Ma-bum-alanga.

“This did not help my image. People spoke jokingly about Miss Bum Bum. I was really embarrassed and feared that I would no longer get support,” Nyarenda says.

To add to her distress, rumours began circulating that she was “pimping the girls” to prominent politicians. While striving to rebut the rumours, some community members rubbed salt in her wounds by asking her to bring her charges to their parties.

“It was not only the rumours; prominent people used to call me and say they were having parties and needed girls. I told them I don’t sell girls. The bad-mouthing was just too much,” says Nyarenda.

Things started coming together for her in 2012, when Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza threw his support behind her project. Then the Mpumalanga Gambling Board came on board as a sponsor. Currently, all Miss Mpumalanga winners get bursaries through the DD Mabuza Foundation to study further after their reign.

Mabuza’s spokesperson, Zibonele Mncwango, says: “The premier supports Nyarenda and her work because of his concern for the growth and wellbeing of the girl child.”

As the first Miss Mpumalanga, Lephoko received virtually nothing, except the opportunity to act as an ambassador for the provincial department of education. Today, a reigning Miss Mpumalanga becomes an ambassador for responsible gambling for the gaming board, stays in a fully furnished house, and receives a stipend, a driving school voucher and a car, as well as the sponsorship of her education after her year is up.

The 2014 queen, Natasha dos Santos, came from such a poor background that the foundation built her family a house in Tekwane South, near Nelspruit. Dos Santos is studying for a BA degree in psychology at the University of Johannesburg.

“The contestants come with unique problems and backgrounds. One needed counselling as her father had disappeared. Another had to deal with family members who demanded the money she won from the competition,” says Nyarenda.

Asked about the expected lifestyle and decorum for Miss Mpumalanga during her reign, she says: “I am strict. They obey the rules while they stay in the Miss Mpumalanga house, and we approve their visitors and public engagements.”

Nyarenda is a former host on SABC’s Ligwalagwala FM, which broadcasts in isiSwati. She resigned in 2011 after she was pulled off air to be a music compiler and a producer – a job she hated.

“I just wanted to be on air,” she says.

“I was pregnant when I resigned and had no income. I founded Mzimari and worked on the Miss Mpumalanga concept. I had wanted to start it in 2010, but doors were closed because the focus was on the soccer World Cup,” Nyarenda recalls.

Now that she has made her mark, Nyarenda has one wish: to attract white participants to the Miss Mpumalanga competition to make it a truly nonracial event, in line with the spirit of the Constitution.

“I am a risk-taker. I open doors where they are closed,” she smiles.

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