Natural BEAUTY

At 22, Rolene Strauss was crowned the world's most beautiful woman... but it took nearly a decade more for her to feel "good enough". Christi Nortier finds out how the former Miss World inspires other women to become queens in their own lives.

Barefoot, brown curls bouncing, Rolene Strauss mastered the art of climbing trees early on. She spent her days clearing homemade backyard putting greens and rigging up "foofy slides" with her brother until the sun went down. When she wasn't exploring, she accompanied her dad to the local hospital and held the hands of his patients. She wanted to be like him one day. But there was something else something 'girly' she loved doing just for herself: the graceful art of ballet.

"The biggest lesson I learnt from being raised in a small town is that you might not have all the opportunities there, but when you do get one, you should grab it with both hands," Rolene says. So when ballet lessons came on offer in the small town of Volksrust, Mpumalanga - hundreds of kilometres from just about anywhere she jumped at the chance to do something that was, back then, completely outside of her comfort zone. With her best friend in hand, she started classes and loved it until the one and only ballet teacher moved to another town and the dancing stopped. "I told my mom I still wanted to do something like that, so she enrolled me in modelling lessons." However, Rolene soon realised that modelling wasn't for her. "It was all about what you look like, whereas pageants and Miss South Africa was more holistic. It's about using your unique skills and talents to really make a difference."