Call for Miss SA not to be looked at as ‘Miss Deaf’

The Neema Foundation, a deaf advocacy group, says Miss SA 2024, Mia Le Roux, should be given fair ground to serve South Africans irrespective of her disability.

Le Roux is the first deaf person to win the coveted crown in the pageant’s 66-year history.

The 28-year-old, who was crowned on Saturday, was diagnosed with profound hearing loss when she was a year old.

She wears a cochlear implant to help her hear sound.

Le Roux has shared that it took her two years of speech therapy before she was able to say her first words.

Her momentous victory comes after weeks of uncertainty on who would be crowned Miss SA, with former contestant Chidimma Adetshina dropping out of the competition amid a Home Affairs Department’s investigation on her mother’s citizenship.

Speaking to YNews, the Neema Foundations Executive Director, Fatima Cele, described Le Roux’s crowning as a huge victory for inclusion.

Cele says her organisation will support the 28-year-old in her quest for inclusivity and ensure that she remains committed to the demands of her crown.

After winning, the model and marketing manager, said: “I am a proudly South African deaf woman, and I know what it feels like to be excluded.”

“I know now that I was put on this planet to break boundaries, and I did it tonight.”

The Neema Foundation says if anything, government should consider pushing for sign language to be introduced as a subject at schools, and later made compulsory at tertiary level.

Cele outlines how government can further ensure that disabled people are not overlooked.