Zanele Phakati
Nominee's Province:
Gauteng
Age:
27
Project Name/Description:
The popular phrase “beauty with brains” is the first thing that comes to mind when interacting with Zanele Phakati. The bubbly 27-year-old has twice been a top 10 finalist in the Miss South Africa pageant, while simultaneously holding a top IT job at the Public Investment Corporation. She now uses the confidence that the world of beauty contests gave her to inspire youngsters in Soweto to dream bigger than their surroundings. And Zanele has certainly seen the world. As a 13-year-old, she participated in a fashion show as a model in New York City, an experience she says made her determined not to limit herself. Since then, she has done modelling jobs for big brands such as Coca-Cola and L’Oréal and now runs mini-pageants in her neighbourhood to spark the same excitement and confidence in young boys and girls. Zanele is not pigeonholed by just pageants, though. Her day job as an IT enterprise architect made her realise that young people are not choosing career options aligned to real job options. “I travel to schools to encourage youngsters to understand that they can be more than a doctor and a lawyer and that they should look beyond the obvious because there are wonderful opportunities out there,” she says.
