By Samuel Bello 

Miss Amnesty Nigeria, an empowerment initiative organised by Tracy Mcwary Foundation, in partnership with the Presidential Amnesty Programme, held its audition in grand style recently.

The initiative is a peace and conflict resolution programme organised to take women off the streets.

Held in four cities, Port Harcourt, Imo, Edo and Abuja, over a two-month period, the process was all-encompassing, catering to both the physical and mental needs of the contestants. There was also a fascinating display of walk patterns from the pageant contestants.

The final audition in Abuja saw an excellent turnout of well-groomed contestants vying for a chance to become the queen.

CEO Gold Makeover, Chika Onuah, CEO Donna Empire, Madonna Nduji, were the guest judges at this phase of the auditions, accompanied by the founder of Tracy Mcwary Foundation, Tracy Mcwary.

The four-tier process for the 2017 auditions began in Port Harcourt.

Following a successful process in Abuja, Tracy Mcwary selected nine girls that would be camping in Abuja for two weeks before the finals.

She added that threats confronting most females made it imperative for the foundation to be worried about the plight of the girl child in the society.

According to Mcwary, “This initiative is a programme to lift women off the streets, that’s why we made the forms free. We decided to come up with this initiative so during camping activities, we would spend two weeks in camp to introduce vocational skills; so, even if you don’t win, at least they would be skilled and empowered at the end of the day.

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“This empowerment is not all about bringing money but making them understand they can start something on their own, they don’t need to be idle, by the time they go through the vocational skills in camp, they would and should be able to start up something.

“This initiative will diffuse the tension in the Niger Delta, bombing of pipelines, the loss of lives and others, that’s why people also need to know that the government is working and trying to ensure peace in the Niger Delta region. These girls are going to be peace ambassadors in their various states.”

She further called on other stakeholders in Niger Delta affairs to join hands in ensuring the success of the event and also extend their hands of affection to the young women in the Niger Delta region.

“There can never be better peace ambassadors  than women, women are the ones who show love to men, nurture them, so they have a great role to play in the society.

“Government needs to put more money in this programme to sustain peace. There would also be reduction in human trafficking with the help of these heads. They need to come together and cater for their needs. Most of them are dropouts, even if they can put them back to school or reduce the rate of prostitution, peace would reign.

“If you don’t take care of them, they might cause a nuisance in the society; the moment you raise good mothers they would advocate for peace.

“When you are empowering women who are going to go back and empower other women, of-course peace should reign and they would also be peace ambassadors,” she said.

One of the contestants, Progress Wenenda, from Rivers State, avowed that, if she becomes the queen, she would build a foundation with a mandate to go to all states of the federation, visiting orphanages and motherless babies homes.

She added that, “The rate at which prostitution is on the rise is something that I want to stop. Many girls are into prostitution in this world because they have nothing else to rely on. If I win, I would make sure majority of ladies are out of the streets, to know the pride and dignity of being a woman.”