WHEELCHAIR PAGEANT
while Mirande Bakker from the Netherlands is the victim of a doctor’s mistake.
Polish kinesiotherapist Beata Jalocha has been confined to a wheelchair since 2013 when a suicide jumper landed on her.
The goal was to “change the image of women on wheelchairs so they would not be judged solely by their disability”, said jury president Katarzyna Wojtaszek-Ginalska, a 36-year-old handicapped mother.
Wojtaszek-Ginalska is head of the Only One Foundation, which has organised the contest drawing on experience from Polish beauty pageants for the handicapped.
“It is not the looks that matter the most. Of course, good looks count, but we focus on the personalities of the girls, their everyday activities.”
Another goal of the pageant is to show that a wheelchair is a luxury in many parts of the world.
Each country could send a maximum of two contestants, who spent eight days here, busy with rehearsals, photo sessions, conferences and visits.
One rehearsal required them to dance to fast music, a task some found impossible to do.
In one instance, a choreographer cried: “Raise your right hand!”
“I don’t have a right hand,” American contestant Jennifer Lynn Adams protested to applause from all hands at the rehearsal.
“I was born with partial limbs, so I have to be adaptive to the music and the choreography, but that’s okay. I live my life adaptively,” said the
Miss Wheelchair America 2014.
“We all have something that limits us, but we can adapt beyond it and we can shine beyond our limitations.” AFP
AFP