Miss Earth Belize Delegates Prepare To Go Global in Pageant

At the top of the news, you heard that the Prime Minister spent 2 hours having lunch with the Miss Earth Belize delegates, but not even 5 minutes with the media. After that lunch, however, we got a chance to meet the 4 delegates ahead of Saturday's pageant. Courtney Menzies has this story: It's pageant week for the four delegates of Miss Earth Belize and today, they enjoyed a lunch with the Prime Minister at Maracas Bar & Grill in Orange Walk. According to the delegates, they engaged in productive dialogue to highlight their environmental concerns. Heavenly Bradley, Miss Earth Belize Delegate "Today's event was nothing less than amazing. It was awesome, this is my second time meeting the Prime Minister of Belize, the first time was when I competed in the Queen of the Bay pageant under the Belize City title so I found the conversation well informed and of course he has the right role as the Prime Minister, I wouldn't bet anything else on it." Heavenly Bradley "My platform I'm campaigning on is called from waste to worry and it's basically you learn that not because something is old doesn't mean it cannot be anew. We try to take old materials, trash, and try to turn it into treasure or meaningful pieces." Kendall Morgan, Miss Earth Belize Delegate "It was actually inspirational, I got to see a different side of the Prime Minister, we always hear him talking about governance issues like finance but now that he actually talks about our environment, it's something rare you see Prime Ministers talking about so we got to see a different side of him and I enjoyed that." Kendall Morgan "I remember seeing an article about the same Sarstoon, the river was polluted and it drove me to create this advocacy, paddling for preservation, protecting the Belize River, preserving our heritage. I use paddling as a sport because I am a national athlete to raise awareness so people can become educated and become environmental stewards." Vashti Thompson, Miss Earth Belize Delegate "I talked to him about my advocacy and he seemed very impressed with the work that I do with my community. I'm the community officer for the National Biodiversity Office so he made a joke saying that he's my boss because I work for the government." Vashti Thompson "My advocacy is community driver biodiversity conservation and youth environmental education and it's basically just educating people to properly care and coexist without environment." Vashti Thompson "Miss Earth is a very environmentally conscious pageant, it's one of the big three international pageants but it's totally focused on environmental change and advocacy, I really think it aligns with my personal values and also what I want to highlight not just as a Belizean but a person." Gwendolyn Galvez, Miss Earth Belize Delegate "It was great, we got to talk to him about the different environmental financing initiatives that they have for example the Blue Bonds and now the climate fund so that was interesting especially because of our platforms, they're all related to environmental conservation so we had a wonderful time picking the Prime Minister's brain on that." Gwendolyn Galvez "My entire life has been a part of conservation, through my mother, my family, everyone I am involved in has played some part in conservation in Belize." Gwendolyn Galvez "Some people say that their advocacy for Miss Earth, Miss Earth is advocacy for me because I've been doing environmental conservation and living among people who do it, I have great examples all over Belize and so I chose to do Miss Earth because I figured we have to give this platform a lot more substance and really focus on doing the things that will preserve the environment and not just pretending to do it." And the outgoing Miss Earth Belize was also there. She told us how she has been helping the delegates prepare for the first Miss Earth pageant in the country. Paris Cawich, Outgoing Miss Earth Belize "It's a good feeling, I am just passing on my knowledge of the pageant itself, on my experience, I am also learning a lot from each of the delegates, each of them are championing for a cause that is greater than them and I believe that we will have a really good representative this year at the Miss Earth Pageant." Paris Cawich "It's the first time that we're having pageant in Belize, we've actually won, this is the only pageant that Belize has ever won internationally and I would say it's at the standard of Miss Universe already because it has all the attention, the only difference with Miss Earth and Miss Universe is that Miss Earth stands for a great cause. They put high priority on the advocacy part." The pageant will be held at the Civic Center in Belize City. The pageant starts at 7 Saturday night.