Miss Summer World 2018 comes home to share advocacy

TACLOBAN CITY – The reigning Miss Summer World visited her home in Catbalogan City, Monday to give back and promote her advocacies.

Kacey Coleen Lim, a London-based model has a Filipino-Chinese father and Spanish-Japanese mother.

The 33-year old is a Political Science graduate from University of the Philippines-Tacloban College who earned her law degree in London.

Lim was crowned Miss Summer World 2018 at the pageant in Durres, Albania, last May 19 and became the first Asian to win the title.

She had also won the Miss Swimsuit UK contest, and at the Best Model 2017 pageant held in Portugal, she was named the best female model in a designer dress made by Filipino designer John Herrera.

“I believe that as the first Asian and Filipina to have won the title, it gives me so much privilege to just talk about the Philippines and it makes me really proud of where I come from,” she said.

“It’s refreshing to see that Samar is not known for its poverty incidence anymore and at least we’re given a different kind of light and that we are being rediscovered as a beautiful place to explore. It’s about time that Samar gets a chunk of the tourism industry,” Lim said.

She feels that Samar is very underrated when it comes to food. “Our food hasn’t been really promoted such as ‘tamalos’, which uses the indigenous ingredients available in the island, as well as a pastry called ‘torta’ and ‘keseo’ or native cheese made out of carabao’s milk,” she said.

She models the local brand Lara, which makes bags and crafts from locally woven mats.

Lim said she wants to share her story because there came a point in her life when she felt that she was silenced, and joining beauty pageants opened other doors for her.

“The most important lesson from beauty pageants is what it brings out in the person such as self-confidence, self-awareness and being able to communicate with different women of the same passion,” she said.

“What I love about the newfound fame that I have is that it gives me the opportunity to encourage people to help,” she said.

Lim and some of her friends distribute school items to children.

“The best way to alleviate poverty is to provide the children with good education. I hope that in this way, I start a flicker in the children’s imagination. Sometimes when you look up, you say that you wanted to achieve this and that, but when you look down and see people down there, you realize that you have so much more to thank for,” she said.