Written By: Staff Writer—She won Miss Millennium Namibia in 2000, was the second runner-up in the 2006 Miss Malaika UK contest, and with her visibility has used her voice to champion for those less fortunate. Meet 28 year old Helena Mazuva (simply Helen or Nanjira (her traditional name) among friends).
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Reflecting on her charmed life, Helen readily recognizes that she has been blessed, but that her blessings have come with a lot of hard work. Her first opportunity to work on an international platform on behalf of youth, was in 1996 when she graduated from high school and was selected as a Youth Activist.
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Along with the prestige the title conferred (only two high school students were selected), the title allowed Helen to study in Norway for a year. The opportunity opened up new avenues for Helen to other pursuits, including the performing arts. As Helen explains, "Apart form the youth work we did in Norway, we lived in an international boarding school called Elverum International Folk College. I studied Norwegian and theatre for a year. I was lucky to be chosen to perform in the biggest musical theatre called Salt of the Earth—the Story About the Life of Nelson Madiba Mandela and the Life in South Africa During the Apartheid Regime. It staged 80 students from 16 different countries, and it was performed all over Norway and also in South Africa. I had two roles in the musical, one of roles I played was the sister of Hector Peterson, a boy that was shot dead on June 16,1976 when South African students protested against being taught in Afrikaans. I could easily relate to this as living in Namibia I grew up in a town where apartheid was so obvious between black and white, and also at the time Namibias was called South West Africa as it belonged to South Africa. Performing in this play opened a lot of wounds for me, we met various south African leaders, like Walter Sisulu, Winnie Mandela, Desmond Tutu ... we also visited Robben Island to see everything that we put into this play, and to see where ... Nelson Mandela spent 27 years of his life."
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Helen graduated from the program and continued with her education, focusing all the while on youth related issues. In 2002, she was sent as a youth exchange student to England to study psychology for a year. "Having done a foundation course in psychology I realize that actually what I want to do is be a counsellor, focusing on people's feelings, understanding their feelings, and giving therapy, rather than psychology which for me is more cognitive and focuses on changing the behaviour of the person." With that realization in mind, Helen studied to become a professional counselor, completing her studies in 2006 with a placements at a rape crisis centre, a healthy living project, and refugee center for women who have suffered domestic abuse.
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