Miss Beverly Asamoah Jecty who was second runner-up at last year’s Miss Ghana contest made Ghana proud at the Miss Tourism World 2002 event held in Turkey in December when she was voted the Best contestant from Africa and duly crowned Miss Tourism World (Africa ) 2002. As part of her prize, Beverly landed a six-month modelling contract with Platinum Modelling Agency, a world renowned modelling management group based in the UK. She is expected to leave for London in the next couple of weeks to take up the contract which will put her on the world catwalk stage.

According to Miss Akosua Puni, spokesperson for 1st Royale Limited, the local holders of the franchise for the Model of the Universe event, the show is organised annually by the Miss Tourism World Organisation which also organises a number of international events such as Model of the World, Mr Tourism World and Miss Tourism World.

She hinted that the Model of the Universe event is not a beauty contest and is open to ladies between the ages of 16 and 27.

Over the last decade, black African models have made considerable impact on the international fashion scene, raking in huge amounts of money for themselves and their countries.

Among the models who have made it big are Iman of Somalia and Oluchi of Nigeria. Though Ghana has a good number of young men and women who have what it takes to hit the international catwalk, the big modelling stages in the world appear to be far away from them.

It is therefore refreshing to note that a Ghanaian company, 1st Royale Limited, has got the franchise to hunt for young ladies, groom them and offer them a platform, through the Model of the Universe contest, to market their talents abroad.

According to Miss Puni, 1st Royale groomed and sponsored Miss Asamoah Jecty to the Miss Tourism World finals in line with the company’s objective of promoting Ghanaian fashion products on the global market.

Meanwhile a ceremony has been held at the Alisa Hotel in Accra to launch the 2003 Model of the Universe-Ghana event to search for the model that will represent Ghana at the international finals which the organisers say is scheduled to take place in Africa, precisely in Ghana in October.

The national event will be in two phases — preliminaries and grand finals. The preliminaries will be held in Accra on Saturday, May 3 at the Aviation Social Centre for the southern zone while Kumasi will host the northern zonal event at the Miklin Hotel on May 10.

For each event 10 models will be selected. In all 20 models will take part in the national finals to be held in Accra on June 30. The best finalist will be groomed to represent Ghana at the Model of the Universe international contest to be held in the country on October 25.

According to the organisers, a minimum of 50 models and a large number of journalists are expected to participate in the world show. The international programme is to be launched in May and is expected to attract the president of the Miss Tourism World Organisation, Mr John Singh as well as the current Model of the Universe, Miss Marina Tarakhovich from Russia.

A fax message from Mr Singh and copied to The Mirror has confirmed the agreement between the Miss Tourism World Organisation and the 1st Royale Company for the latter to stage the World finals of Model of the Universe 2003 in Ghana.