Walking on glass, breaking wooden boards and breaking arrows with your neck are all challenges in the finals of the Miss Universe Pageant.
Sharon Gaffka aged 24 from Didcot will be one of 40 women taking part in the 2020 Miss Universe Great Britain competition in South Wales in July. She is also the first and only woman from Oxfordshire to have won a UK crown and represented the United Kingdom at the Miss International Beauty Pageant in Tokyo in 2018.
Miss Gaffka is a Didcot resident and attended Didcot Girls and Didcot Sixth Form. The self-proclaimed ‘pageant veteran’ entered her first beauty pageant at the age of 15.
Miss Gaffka enjoys entering pageants because it is something different. She said: “It’s something new, I work in an office job which is quite corporate, and this is very different to my daily life. I get to dress up, but it is also about getting involved in organisations and charities.”
She added: “For me the girls I meet at pageants are all very ambitious and intelligent.”
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Miss Gaffka will be entering into three days of challenges at the Miss Universe pageant and she ran through the busy schedule.
On day one the theme is empowerment and the challenges for the first day bizarrely include walking on broken glass, breaking wooden boards and breaking arrows with your neck.
Day two are the rehearsals for the final night and a charity ball. This ball is called a ‘bring a bra ball’ the contestants collect bras and other pieces of underwear to send to a charity in Africa. Last year the pageant contestants managed to collect over 1000 bras.
On day three contestants will be interviewed by the judges, there will be an opening dance number and evening wear. The top five from the final will go on stage to answer a question aimed towards the theme of female empowerment.
Miss Gaffka has become involved in multiple charities as a result of her pageants. She has raised over £2,000 for the Christy Cancer Charity and run two half marathons.
She said: “After Miss International I decided I was no-longer going to enter pageants, however I thought it would be beneficial for the charity work. It does raise a lot of issues as well as raise a lot of money. We are encouraged to pursue our own charity work and I’m putting my focus on working with the young women’s trust.”
Miss Gaffka has previously collected sanitary items to send abroad and she was also an ambassador in Japan to stop domestic violence. She also does charity work for the Young Woman’s Trust which focuses on the economic empowerment of young women in the UK.
Miss Gaffka said: “A lot of people assume that because you are participating in this, you’re not a feminist. But, it’s about the woman as a package. In the pageant community I feel the least judged.
“A long time ago pageants were just about what you looked like but now 60 per cent judged on an interview and you need a cause and a purpose.
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"A lot of people only see the final product of a woman in a swimsuit and not the hard work that goes into it.”
A-Sisterhood- an organisation which supports the advancement of women worldwide, is the chosen charity for this year’s Miss Universe pageant. If candidate raises £2.5 thousand for the A-Sisterhood charity, then they will go to India to work at the ‘Sheroes’ charity which is a haven for victims of acid attacks. Miss Gaffka will be spending the next few months focusing on charity work, her interviewing skills and public speaking and she is determined to go to India.
This year, money from the fundraising will be donated to regional offices of Women’s Aid which campaigns for the end of domestic violence in the UK; the National Centre for Female Genital Mutilation which aims to put an end to the practice by 2030; Stop Acid Attacks in India which helps survivors of acid violence; and The Black Mambas which is South Africa’s first all-female anti-poaching unit protecting the rhino.
A donation will be made by A-Sisterhood to a female cause chosen and supported by the titleholder.
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