Why am I entering a competition for a title?

Yes, I’ve entered Mrs South Africa. No, I am not having a mid-life crisis or a re-visit to my years when I was a girl that dabbled a little in modelling.

I am in fact having a reawakening; a renewal if you will. I will be forty this year and I have spent all my adult life dedicated to giving my daughter Savannah, who is a person with special needs, a life of dignity and value while building our family.

I have raised my second daughter, Talisa with the understanding that life is not always fair but you still have to be fair.

Over the years Talisa watched me patiently teach her sister a great many lessons. Some of which Savannah grasped and other lessons she may never learn.

Talisa understands the fight of a mother who didn’t quit. She knows STRONG because she is raised by a strong woman and is a sibling to a strong woman.

This year Talisa will also know that strength is also Beautiful not only tired. Strength is not only long suffering but it is also Joyful. Strength is not only the ability to keep going when life doesn’t go your way but it is also the ability to do it with Grace.

Being a mother to a child with special needs already made me a strong and confident woman but the chance to compete in the Tammy Taylor Mrs South Africa Women Empowerment programme makes me a strong and powerful woman with a cause beyond my community.

My community are the mothers who are caring for adult children. Those mothers who quit careers to become carers. Or who are working hard to provide for their families while coping with facing forever with an adult who will never be able to care for themselves. They are the woman who are left behind (posted on, 15 February 2018 http://amillionbeautifulpieces.co.za/2018/02/15/sue-robins-left-behind/).

My community are the mothers who make quiet sacrifices yet continue to uplift their communities. The mothers who continously fight for their child’s right to dignity and quality of life and do it without the need for recognition or being hailed as a hero. The mothers whose lives are bound to their child with special needs in ways no one else will understand, and they accept that no one ever will. Yet everyday they rise to do it all again.

For my community, and proudly as Talisa’s mother, I am excited to join with the 99 other #bonfide women as we jointly pursue the crown in honour of all women. Sounds strange doesn’t it, but it is what only women can do… Work together even though we already know there will be one winner. As women, we understand that often in life it is the journey that is often the prize, not the destination. However, the destination is a lovely reward.

For Talisa, I hope this year you will learn that being a woman is fun and exhilarating. I hope that as I put myself first, you too will learn to do the same.

For Savannah I hope as I pursue a dream, you will find your motivation again. Life is hardest on you but you are by far the strongest woman I know. I promised you “I would not change you for the world, I’d change the world for you” (author unknown), and I will always hold true to that.

For my readers, I hope you stay with me on this journey as I rediscover the joys of being a woman who already has the heart of a warrior.

Why? Because women need women, and for once I need to do something that doesn’t need reason or logic. I still get the opportunity to share myself in the way that is true to who I am, by inspiring and working alongside others for a cause.

I need you to please follow me and interact with me on the following platforms: To vote for me: Annelize I’ll add this later at my laptop.

To vote for me: