Big and Fabulous to take centre stage next week

Two weeks ago, the Bird’s Isle boasted a capacity crowd of spectators there to watch the Big and Beautiful pageant. Tonight, the organisers of a similar event are hoping for the same success. News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports.

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This afternoon, contestants in the first annual Big, Bold, and Fabulous pageant hit the beach at Old Belize as part of the event’s publicity campaign.

According to Tricia Morris and Schawania Stanford, after participating in last year’s Big and Beautiful show, they’ve decided to go out on their own to raise money for junior carnival bands.

Tricia Morris, Organiser
“We were the contestants last year, but we didn’t get any profit or anything out of the Big and Beautiful, so we try our pageant on our own and we are trying to make it successful.”

Schawania Stanford, Organiser
“But we didn’t want our plan to just go just like that. We start out to help all the junior carnival bands and we want to continue doing that. So we said, well she could keep the name, we don’t worry about the name, but we will continue to do what we do.”

Janelle Chanona
“How do you make your pageant different from the first?”

Schawania Stanford, Organiser
“Well if you saw Ms. Welcome’s pageant, you saw that the contestants were older than the girls we have. We started out with the pageant for young ladies and you can see our contestant, they speak for themselves.”

Dorla Vaughn, Organiser
“It’s a lot of hard work. We are out everyday begging for sponsors. We sent letters, we do walk-ins and up to now it’s good, the results are very good.”

And the contestants are determined to make a big impression on the Belizean public.

Cicily Trapp, Contestant #1
“Cause we big they think we can’t dance, think we can’t stretch, think we can’t do model, nothing; that’s why.”

Janelle Chanona
“So you wah change deh mind?”

Cicily Trapp
“Yeah.”

Janelle Chanona
“What have you been doing to get ready for this show?”

Shomac Garbutt, Contestant #2
“A lot of exercise.”

Janelle Chanona
“What kind of exercise?”

Shomac Garbutt
“Tae Bo.”

Janelle Chanona
“Show me a Tae Bo move…”

[Shomac does kick]

Janelle Chanona
“So you are going to do that on stage?”

Shomac Garbutt
“That and more.”

Shakira Terry, Contestant #3
“The reason I signed up for the pageant is because every September I always look forward to the carnival and I really support that this pageant is for a fundraise for a Carnival group. And so I am looking forward for a bigger and better Carnival this year so I sign up for the pageant to fundraise for the Carnival group.”

Sayuri Cattouse, Contestant #4
“And not because we are fat or we are big and fabulous, that means that we’re not healthy at times, you know. We are still healthy. Some people naturally have fat in their family, like my family, we are a big family, big people, so that is why I am this luscious size.”

Annafred Young, Contestant #5
“I love my body the way I am, I’m not ashamed of it whatsoever, so they came and they told me about it and I thought it was a positive thing to be a role model to these young ladies nowadays, all the obese ones, sorry to say it like that, but they are so self conscious of their body. So what I want to do is to go and show them that being big, bold and fabulous is great and you can get whatever you want being whatever size you want to be.”

Tiffany Stevens, Contestant #6
“All of us are winners, I feel that all of us are winners and all of us do the best, so it’s gonna be a real enjoyable show.”

Janelle Chanona
“What did your family tell them you were going up on stage?”

Tiffany Stevens
“You again? You noh done tired a Miss Ladyville already? I was like, I got bigger so I’m going to show them I’m fabulous.”

The event is set to take place on Saturday, July fourteenth at the Belize City Centre. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.

Tickets to Big, Bold and Fabulous are five dollars children, ten general and fifteen reserve.