22-year-old Ziphozethu Sithebe from Centurion was crowned Miss Earth South Africa 2022, at an announcement in Rosebank.

• The Miss Earth South Africa has been an advocate for the development of young women in South Africa as Environmental Ambassadors.
• The competition celebrates almost two decades of Environmental Advocacy, Community Service and another generation of Green Leaders.
• Ziphozethu will represent South Africa later this year in the Philippines for the 2022 Miss Earth.
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Miss Earth 2022 winner, Ziphozethu, has an avid passion for aviation and the green innovation within this space. She has been hard at work over the past few months with her greening projects and campaigns.

Ziphozethu is joined by her runner up, Nthabiseng Kgasi, a marketer and home girl from Protea Glen, this former Miss Soweto, is 27-years-old and is no stranger to the media space. Included in the line-up of announcements made, two ambassadors were announced to complete the Top 4: Knysna beauty, Angelique Fourie is a BA Corporate Comms graduate and is passionate about sustainability and community development and is joined in the top four, by KwaZulu Natal’s Melissa Lederle from Pietermaritzburg and is currently completing her PhD on Climate Change, Refugees and 21st Century Scenarios.

In early September 2022 a panel of judges spent the day with the young women who unpacked their community projects and work. Judges included the CEO of the Green Development Foundation: Rebecca Ngaka; Director of the Europa Art Group, Melina Lambrakis; world renowned designer and the man behind the world-famous Madiba Shirt, Sonwabile Ndamase and broadcasting giant Leanne Manas, a face and personality that is no stranger to South Africans.

With a passionate commitment and mission to change the perception and understanding of climate change, the impact of environmental degradation and the crucial waste, water and food security paradigm, the Miss Earth South Africa organisation remains committed to ensuring that through campaigns such as the #WasteStopsWithME they are able to be on the ground, in cities and communities across the country; from Johannesburg to Tshwane, KwaZulu Natal and Cape Town, Eldorado and Soweto, Alexandria to Gugulethu, to name but a few. Communities were engaged, clean-ups were hosted and communities gathered, to understand and engage the topic at a local level.

Finalists demonstrate clear leadership qualities, creative thinking, strength of the mind and character, most importantly a passion for making a sustainable difference in their communities.

// Programme Director, Ella Bella Leite

Through these programmes, the primary objective is always to create awareness and more importantly to educate on the issue of waste management and the catastrophic effects of a lack of waste-consciousness for our country and the globe – with a core focus on taking the issue of waste to the individual and connecting ordinary South Africans to their own waste generation and footprint. In other programmes food security, Ocean Protection, eWaste, Conservation and illegal wildlife trade, are but a few of the focus areas that are tackled each year.

We are faced with a climate emergency and we have no time to lose; it is our belief that these young women will take the #GreeningMinds into every sphere of their communities and platforms of influence as they set the agenda and shift behaviour, mindsets and the future we strive for. Their time is now!

// Miss Earth South Africa Executive Director, Catherine Constantinides

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