THE Record interviewed Pabi Modise on May 11 about the Justice Pageant, which strives to embed good morality into the youth.
Founded just over a decade ago, the Justice Pageant, in association with the No Crime Culture Project, was established by Jolene Leeuwner-Maritz, South African Business Woman of 2015. The Pageant’s primary objective is to select and shape individuals who will serve as role models for the youth and execute informal character education in schools and in the community.
The No Crime Culture Project aims to create awareness in individuals of the need for basic morality, ethics and norms of conduct – in other words, to inspire, instil, impress and by way of repetition convince people into accepting, believing in, and promoting norms of conduct that would extinguish the tendency to criminal behaviour.
To become a part of the Justice Pageant, one must have matric, preferably tertiary qualifications and be between the ages of 18 and 26. Beauty is not considered here and both men and women can participate. “It’s not about looks here. A good role model is someone who is ambitious and successful, hence the matric and tertiary qualifications; the pageant wants their role models to have something good to show the youth and to inspire them to want to be successful,” says Pabi Modise.
Pabi (26) represents this cause as the Miss Justice Pageant Semi-Finalist 2017. She joined the pageant last year, after noticing a desperate need for morality in the youth. She noticed this need especially when she taught economics to high school learners a few years ago. “People are so driven by self-interest and money and there is no unity. I feel as if people don’t consider how their immoral behaviour and decisions will affect the future of society,” she says.
Pabi’s participation in the No Crime Culture Project kicks off at the end of May and should conclude in September. This entails visiting five schools in Mpumalanga – four of which she attended herself and one in which she taught. During these visits, she will present the learners with lessons on morality and encourage them to think about good role models as a way of introspection. After the visits, Pabi will collect the learners’ results and analyse them for research purposes.
For Pabi, unity, tolerance, open-mindedness and especially respect are the most important moral values she believes everyone should have. From her experience, society is driven by self-interest and the youth is becoming more and more apathetic with each passing generation. “It is so important to present the youth with positive role models. “All you see these days is music videos of people having sex, drinking, partying and smoking weed, and this is unfortunately an example of the role models of today,” she says. “We want to change that.”
If you agree that the world would be better if it raised its moral standards and want to support or proudly sponsor this cause, feel free to contact 072 736 3996 for more information.
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