Warsaw’s Diana-Melissa Ngoumape Wins Miss Africa USA Pageant

Jackie Gorski

Warsaw resident Diana-Melissa Ngoumape won the Miss Africa USA pageant Sept. 6.
“I’m still on cloud nine and I’m still so very proud of myself because I know I worked really hard for this,” she said, noting one of the goals she had since December was to win a pageant.
In a previous interview, Ngoumape said the pageant, which happened in Baltimore, Md., is for those of African descent and tries to promote African culture and beauty and for African immigrants and descendants to come together and represent Africa.
This was Ngoumape’s first pageant in the U.S. and second overall, with the first overall pageant being in Ghana while she was in college. She said the Miss Africa USA was the next level of pageantry compared to the first pageant she participated in, in regards to having more work, more perseverance and more creativity.
During the pageant, finalists chose an African country to represent and Ngoumape chose the Central African Republic, which is the country she was born in.
Before the pageant, Ngoumape was able to visit the Central African Republic embassy in Washington, D.C., and got the blessing from the embassy. She was then able to check in to the hotel and attend the welcome reception and rehearsals and meet the other finalists.
“They kept us really busy,” she said.
Besides winning the crown and sash, Ngoumape said she will also receive brand and media help with her platform, NDORA, which is dedicated to empowering girls, youth and mothers through education and opportunity. There is also a tour of Africa in the package as well.
She said now that she won the pageant, that’s where the work actually begins because now she represents all Africans in the U.S. and “that’s a huge responsibility and a huge task.”
She plans, with her platform NDORA, on building a center in her home village in Central African Republic to help young mothers to start a business “or whatever it may be.” She also hopes to have a daycare in the center where children can go to school because “education is the most powerful thing we can offer to anyone, Nelson Mandela said.”
Another initiative she plans on working on is having all Africans coming together and working on a common goal, noting she wants to work on something that has an impact in the U.S. as well as Africa.
As far as requirements for Ngoumape from the pageant itself, she said she’d have more information once she received her contract, which she had not gotten as of Saturday.
Ngoumape said she would love to compete in at least one or two more pageants to really represent her country and African excellence.
She said the Miss Africa USA pageant was very overwhelming and took a lot of work, but it was very transformational for her. It allowed her to learn more about herself and her ability to stay strong in difficult times and stay firm in her passions.

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