Education is key for new Miss World Bahamas

Fri, Aug 15th 2014, 11:22 AM

She's a beauty with a purpose -- who wants to raise awareness of the importance of obtaining an education -- and become the first Bahamian to capture the Miss World crown.Almost two weeks after capturing the Miss World Bahamas title in her first time entering a pageant of any sort, Rosetta Cartwright is already entrenched in training to represent The Bahamas at the Miss World Pageant in London on December 14. Rosetta, who had zero interest in beauty pageants, entered the Miss World Bahamas pageant at the urging of someone who saw her at a fashion show. Rosetta, who stands five feet, 10 inches went through the screening process. They told her about the pageant, and she did research on her own to find out what it was about. The humanitarian work contestants engage in, and the relatable girl-next-door beauty with a purpose pageant piqued her interest.Rosetta, 19, from Sweeting's Cay, off Grand Bahama, went from disinterested to stepping away with the ultimate prize on Sunday, August 3 -- Miss World Bahamas in her first pageant ever. The platform gives her the avenue to push her agenda to raise awareness about the importance of education."I said okay, I get the best of both worlds. I could do this pageant and bring awareness about education, something that's important to me, and letting children in The Bahamas know how important it is to have a good education," said Rosetta who has completed two years of her business management studies with a minor in tourism at The College of The Bahamas. "For me to see some children not take their education seriously ... and they can get free education through twelfth grade, and in some cases through college with scholarships, that really drove me. I had a message and wanted to tell my story."Rosetta's story is of being raised in a single parent home by her mother Joan Davis after her father went missing when she was seven years old, and a young girl who from an early age ascribed to the importance of her studies and earned her way onto the honor/distinction roll throughout primary school.It's of a young girl who skipped ninth grade after sitting six Bahamas Junior Certificates (BJCs) in eighth grade. She got A and B grades. She found herself a 13-year-old in tenth grade. She graduated high school with five Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) national exams.She also recalled on the morning of her high school graduation telling her mother, Joan Davis that she would never have to spend a dime on her education, except maybe for books. When Rosetta enrolled in COB, her mother did not have to spend a penny. Rosetta had gotten all of her scholarships herself, and she excelled at COB -- president's list the first year, dean's list the second year -- that she now has a $30,000 bursary to pay for her education. "Winning the Miss World Bahamas, and when I win Miss World would definitely open a door for me, to bring awareness to my platform that education is key. This will allow me to tell my story and spread the message, and if there is only one child I can help, I would look back at it and say I did it well," she said.Rosetta said she loves it when people tell her that she can't do something. She said that negativity pushes her to prove them wrong to achieve the goal."I plan on going abroad to college and everyone I know asks me how I'm going to do that, but I say don't worry about it. I may not see how it's going to happen now, but I guarantee you I'm going to be leaving -- I'm going to go, and it's going to fall into place. You just have that drive and determination to never give up until you accomplish your goals. "Coming from Sweeting's Cay, no one would ever dream that I would be Miss World Bahamas. People think that's impossible. My friends always tell me I have these huge dreams, and I always tell them I don't know how they're going to happen, but they're going to happen."Two things that the new Miss World Bahamas took away from the pageant were the friendships she made and lessons learnt during the pre-pageant sessions."The sessions surprised me, because me having the opinion that the only thing to pageants was having a pretty walk, a pretty dress and a nice smile, and then finding out that this was actually a program and you had to go to sessions that were about finding ourselves, building who we are and figuring out where we want to go in life. Even though the other contestants may not have won the crown, they still won something in the end, and those are lessons you can't get anywhere, and you can take with you for life. So if I had not won, in my mind and in my heart I knew I had won. I gave it my best and I walked away with those lessons."And she won despite so many things that were not in her favor. It seemed that everything that could do wrong did -- on the float parade her car stopped working, she had to ask someone to use their car; her dress arrived the day before the evening gown competition, she couldn't fit it and she literally had to get cut out of it and had to have a dress made in about six hours; the airline lost her bag that held her talent costume, she had to find a costume to replace the original which was found after the competition. Looking back, Rosetta said she remembered telling herself that God would not have allowed her to go through all that she had for nothing.And when she realized she had won, she said the only thing she did not want to do was cry.

"I have like the worst cry -- beyond Kim Kardashian horrible cry," she said. But she immediately started crying anyway.When she travels to London for the Miss World pageant that would be the most exotic locale she would have visited so far in her life (if she doesn't travel to other countries beforehand). She says she's eager to experience new cultures and different cuisines. She's also now obsessed with Bamboo Shack, which she enjoyed for the first time when she came to New Providence about a month before the pageant. (As she's in training, she said she's put that new indulgence on hold.)Besides loving food, the new Miss World Bahamas describes herself as a nerd and says she could spend all day reading a book or watching fascinating historical documentaries on television. She also loves fashion and loves to dress. Rosetta plans to relocate to New Providence for her reign as she said it would make fulfilling her duties as queen easier.

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