2021 Miss Soweto drives away in a new Toyota Starlet XR model

Martha Hector, Toyota promotions manager hands over the keys to Ludina Ngwenya, Miss Soweto 2021

Photo credit: Thabo Nyembe

Media, pageant sponsors and Miss Soweto’s family were all in attendance, and watched as Miss Soweto was handed the car keys to her new silver Toyota Starlet XR, which she gets to drive for the duration of her reign. The radiant beauty queen took to the stage as she delivered an emotional speech of thanks to White Star and Toyota for presenting her with her first car. She shared that she was one of the first members of her family to not only obtain her driver’s license but to also drive and have a vehicle, which she noted as a great accomplishment that makes her feel very empowered as a young black female.

As a beauty queen who wears the scars around her body with pride, Ngwenya hopes to build confidence and affirm anyone with either a visible or invisible scar or any endeavour they face that they are capable and worthy of their dreams. Representing diversity in a world where people are constantly trying to conform is what she says made her unique from the other contestants.

She would love to use her voice to birth transformation in the lives of others and to live a life of service. Through her life story, she hopes to encourage and inspire those who are well resourced to invest in the less fortunate, because she is a product of such people. She would love to be a trailblazing leader in advocating for people with visible differences and disabilities to build a more inclusive and realistic society. “These people still deal with discriminatory attitudes that undermine and belittle them; with the perpetrators being of no specific group, but all of us. It is time to change this narrative through educational awareness,” she says.