Guyanese sets sights on Miss Venus Model Caribbean crown
Throughout the years since she took up modelling and pageantry she has dealt with various challenges and would rely on her supporters, mostly her family. “Generally, I’m an independent person but I have a great support system that I draw from – my sisters, my mother and grandmother.”
When asked who her inspiration is, Onesha said her mother, who dropped out of UG after becoming pregnant to raise her and tried her best to put her children through school. Even now her mother is helping to raise her daughter so that she can finish school.
It was through Khaya., her daughter, she shared, that she learnt of new challenges in life and it was Kia also she said who helped her realize how strong she is. “It was an added motivation and an inner strength was founded having transitioned from a woman to a mother in the prime of my modelling career. It was a challenge at first, but I gained strength from it,” the young woman said. Onesha is all about her daughter because of their experience together, having had to include studying and work while raising her daughter, she decided that her platform for this particular pageant will focus on working mothers.
She will be working along with Alicia Bess and Tracy Smith who recently participated in the Miss Universe Guyana. Together the women will carry out a survey on working mothers, the challenges they face and how they deal with them. They will also be hosting a forum where some prominent working mothers in society will share their bit. “The main focus of the forum is to help mothers realize that whatever they are going through, it will eventually come to an end. The forum aims to help persons in setting short and long-term goals and how to achieve this,” Onehsa said.
The upcoming pageant will have a featured category that highlights parts of the eighthour community service each contestant is expected to carry out; the forum will be included in this.
Onesha, a freelance model, chose to stay away from agencies and said in doing so she is able to market herself and explore as she chooses.
How she manages to stay fit? In explaining this she laughed noting that she has a hyperactive daughter who helps. Kia has always been part of her workout routine and she would incorporate part of their mother and daughter time into this; she puts in an hour every day, usually with Kia strapped to her. Onesha does not have a particular diet, but she tries to have few sweets and a lot of water.
Though in her earlier years she was never a pageant fanatic, she claims she is now and hopes to one day share the spotlight with her daughter in the Mother and Daughter pageant and eventually to participate in the Miss Renaissance Pageant also. She encourages young women to be open to pageantry saying that in being groomed to become queen, persons are pushed to become the best version of who they are inclusive of etiquette, proper posture and impromptu speeches.
In her free time Onesha loves travelling, spending time with her family, volunteering with St Rose’s High from time to time in tutoring and reading. Her favourite author is Jackie Collins. It was one of Collins’ books, Dangerous Kiss, that allowed Onesha to see herself in a different light. She was drawn to one particular character who reminded her of herself. The character, she said, found pride in her kinky hair and though the character was a high-class person, she was reserved and shy. From her, Onesha drew the strength to always be herself and realize that nothing could hinder her.
Onehsa now works at the Balwant Singh Hospital but hopes that in a decade’s time, having completed her degree, she would open a non-profit organization that caters for women and girls and collaborate with friends in making life free from discrimination for persons in the LGBT community.
The Miss Venus Model Caribbean gives the crowned queen the opportunity of a fullscholarship to the University of the West Indies. Onesha leaves next Wednesday for Anguilla where she will begin participating in preliminaries alongside representatives of eight other countries up until the coronation night set for next Saturday.
The model took the opportunity to acknowledge her support team: Mark Junor, Tracy Smith, Kiefer Bacchus, Mwanza Glen and Alicia Bess.