The maritime industry pageantry, Face Of Maritime International (FOMI) has auditioned contestants for Season 9 edition; even as it has also unveiled the 2024 theme of the beauty pageant entitled “Giving Your Beauty A Meaning”.
Speaking at the Season 9 Audition held on Wednesday, the Director of FOMI and Chairman of Girls Go-To-Sea Campaign Initiative, organisers of the pageant, Mr Sylvanus Obasi said that Face Of Maritime International (FOMI) is a maritime industry pageant of international standards which uses beauty queens as role models to advocate greater participation of women in maritime career paths.
He revealed that the criteria for eligibility requires that contestants must be single ladies from Nigeria or any country of the world who are within the ages of 18 and 28 and must have SSCE as minimum education qualification.
Adding that Contestants with maritime background are added advantage, even as models, aspiring models or interested damsels who desire to become beauty queens are equally acceptable.
Delivery a keynote speech on the central theme of the pageant for year 2024 tagged “Giving Your Beauty A Meaning”, the Former Port Manager, Lagos Port Complex and Assistant General Manager, Tariff and Billings of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Mrs Funmilayo Olotu redefined the meaning BEAUTY to the contestants.
According her, the Letter ‘B’ in BEAUTY stands for Brilliance, whereas the letter ‘E’ means Elevate yourself, letter ‘A’ means Attract the content not the cover, letter ‘U’ means be Unique in your style, while letter ‘T’ means be Timely in all assigned tasks and letter ‘Y’ means Yield to instructions.
Speaking further, the Maritime Amazon also introduced to the FOMI contestants what she called the five ‘E’s principles of life which according to her would guide them towards achieving success in their life endeavours.
Mrs Funmilayo Olotu, Former Port Manager, Lagos Port Complex and Former Assistant General Manager, Tariff & Billing, NPA
She listed the 5 E’s Principles to include Education, Experience, Exposure, Experiment and Expectations, urging them to raise the bar of expectation for themselves high and lower the bar of expectations on others so that their disappointments in life would be minimal.
Earlier in her own speech titled, “The Place Of Pageantry In Self Development Of Young Ladies”, a motivational coach and mentor, Mrs Sarah Roberts explained the importance of Pageantry in self development of young ladies which according her includes to build their self confidence, self esteem and self worth.
Mrs Sarah Roberts, Motivational Coach and Mentor
She also maintained that pageantry helps in training young ladies to be elegant, poised and expressive, while also promoting societal values, community service and cultural heritage of a people.
Also speaking at the Audition, maritime Consultants and Lecturers, Drs. Taiwo and Kehinde Oshigbo who gave a lecture tagged, “Introduction To Maritime”, explained the meaning and key components of maritime to the contestants.
Drs. Taiwo and Kehinde Oshigbo, Maritime consultants and lecturers
The maritime twins as they are fondly called highlighted the contributions of women in maritime development locally and internationally, and challenged the contestants to see FOMI as an opportunity to achieve greatness and contribute to maritime development in Nigeria through their pet project.
Meanwhile, the 2021 Winner of Face Of Maritime International, Queen Temitope Ogunkanmi who delivered a welcome address to the contestants during the Audition urged the candidates to bring their ‘A’ game to table knowing fully well that it’s a competition of which only one winner would emerge.
She shared her 2021 FOMI experience with the contestants and encouraged them to bear in mind that beyond winning the pageant, they have a pet project to carry out during their one year service resign as queens.
Queen Temitope Ogunkanmi, Winner of FOMI 2021
Highlights of the Audition included the Audition Talks, the Casting and the Interactive Session where Mrs Sarah Roberts gifted a token of #30,000 to six contestants who gave a brilliant explanations of what they learnt from the audition talks even as Mrs Funmilayo Olotu gifted #5000 to Miss Adeleke Dammy for being punctual at the Audition.
The Audition of the 2024 Contestants marks the official commencement of Face Of Maritime International (FOMI) Season 9 contest involving series of preliminary tasks and activities before a one week camping and training of the contestants ahead of the Grand Finale scheduled for September 22 in Lagos.
