Ten contestants will be vying for the crown at a pageant for an African woman to be held at the Big Five Lodge in Mogoditshane tomorrow.

For this one size does not matter much as the organisers have gone for what they say is an acceptable normal size of an African woman, size 32-36.

According to pageant chief organiser, Seneo Sesenyi, they chose to run a pageant to celebrate the African woman's body usually ignored in most beauty pageants where contestants are expected to be thinner than size 32.

Looking at her, the organiser does not come across as a fat person herself. She is slender but Sesenyi says on the three occasions she has had to audition for pageants such as Miss University of Botswana (UB), or Miss Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), she had to shed so much weight just to meet the set standards.

"It was frustrating. I had to starve myself in order to shed weight. I went without food, or ate very little, just to meet the required sizes. My friend who is a size 36, also went through the same troubles, and we decided it was high time we did something about this," said Sesenyi ahead of the finals for the pageant dubbed 'Miss African Queen'. It will be held at Big Five Lodge starting at 7pm.

Sesenyi says it is important to recognise that Africans traditionally have certain sizes that should be appreciated and not shunned. "We are not saying people should not lose weight. In fact we do not encourage people to be obese, it is unhealthy, but size 36 does not pose any obesity problems, because we have people who cannot trim their bodies below size 36", Sesenyi told Arts & Culture. The event was launched last year with preliminary activities for the contestants covering such routines as traditional dancing, and community projects. It was also launched by the 2009 Miss Earth Botswana queen, Tumisang Sebina.

Tomorrow the 10 contestants will be vying for the crown and P5,000 cash prize.

Sesenyi's inaugural pageant has no sponsor, but she hopes that as time goes by, they would be able to interest a number of potential backers. Tickets for the finals are selling at P100 each.