Kelly-Mary Annette, Seychelles’ reigning Miss Seychelles, yesterday morning met with First Lady Linda Ramkalawan to discuss the first lady’s collaboration and partnership in the Maylene’s Hope Foundation.
Setting up the foundation was Miss Annette’s beauty with a purpose project which aims at empowering and providing emotional and psychological support to semi-orphans.
At yesterday’s meeting at the First Lady’s office at the Family House, Miss Annette was accompanied by Stephanie Duval, chairperson of Beauty Empowerment Seychelles (BES), organisers of the beauty pageant.
Following her talks with the First Lady, the beauty queen stated that it is an honour that she has agreed to be part of the Maylene Hope Foundation as her scope of influence will benefit greatly to the cause.
The First Lady’s duties will mainly focus on public appearances and helping move the foundation forward.
Miss Annette noted that through statistics relating to the number of semi-orphans in Seychelles, she has discovered that there are around 207 children in primary and secondary who have lost a parent.
She noted that this statistic will help them to better cater to them through support services offered by the foundation.
“When you lose a parent there are many psychological issues that come with the loss. We will offer deep therapy, psychological session and focus group to help them and show them that they are not alone,” she added.
Aside from emotional therapy and counselling, the other aim of the foundation is to provide semi-orphans with a wealth management class, life skills classes, decision-making sessions, resilience workshops, sports and fitness, to empower them.
“We also intend to organise fun trips and day outings where they can get to socialise with others, or even discover their passion for something; give them a starting point so they can pave their own way,” said the beauty queen.
Based on discussions with the ministries responsible for Youth and Social Affairs, there are counsellors willing to offer counselling to semi-orphans although the foundation is also calling out to other professionals and organisations to support the cause and to help in any way they can to empower the young people and equip them with life skills to navigate through life.
The official launch of the foundation will take place this coming Friday.
Source: National Information Services Agency