Sixteen-year-old Miss Teen Elite Botswana Eilleen-May Moapare is packing more than gowns for Mini Model World in Bogotá, she’s carrying a movement stitched in empathy and discipline
GOSEGO MOTSUMI
There’s a quiet rebellion happening behind the rhinestones. At just 16, Eilleen-May Moapare is flipping the script on what a beauty title looks like— less tiara, more toolkit. When she steps onto the Mini Model World stage this June, she won’t just be modelling couture; she’ll be modelling a new kind of teenage leadership.
Her project, Grace in Giving, launches in Gaborone on February 28 — a community initiative built to support underprivileged children with school supplies, basic needs and something rarer: emotional validation.
Because for Moapare, charity isn’t a photo op. It’s infrastructure.
THE MOTHER MANIFESTO
Behind the poise is a blueprint drafted at the kitchen table. Her mother, former pageant contestant Oteng Lorraine Moapare, raised her on a philosophy that sounds more like a leadership seminar than pageant prep.
“Beauty may open doors, but it is your heart that keeps them open,” she told Time Out — a line that lands like a thesis statement for a generation tired of empty sparkle.
THE CROWN AS A COMMUNITY TOOL
Grace in Giving isn’t framed as charity — it’s framed as dignity. The strategy includes partnerships with schools, mentorship circles and youth collaboration, turning what could have been a one-day donation drive into a long-term social enterprise.
And that’s where Moapare’s story stops being a feel-good teen profile and becomes something bigger: a case study in how Gen Z is weaponising visibility for structural empathy.
“More than anything, I want her legacy to teach girls that they can pursue excellence without losing humility, and that true beauty is found in purpose,” she said.
FULL-CIRCLE, FORWARD
Watching her daughter prepare has flipped the power dynamic at home. Lorraine admits the journey has taught her humility — proof that sometimes the crown trains the mother, too.
A NEW DEFINITION OF BEAUTY
In a culture where pageantry has long been synonymous with glamour, Moapare is proposing a remix: beauty as social entrepreneurship. If she succeeds, the legacy won’t be the sash or the Bogotá spotlight — it will be the number of young girls who realise leadership doesn’t require permission.