A 23-year-old marketing student from Bến Tre, Vietnam made history as being the first Vietnamese woman to take home the crown at the Miss Earth competition on November 3, 2018.
Phương Khanh Nguyễn beat 86 other contenders for the title and was crowned by Miss Earth 2017 Karen Santos Ibasco of the Philippines.
Nguyen is fluent in both Vietnamese and English, according to Rappler.
When asked about what made her most proud about representing Vietnam on the Miss Earth website, Nguyen states, “I am proud to be Vietnamese. Our land has stood the tests of times thru history. We, the Vietnamese treasure freedom, shrugs off trials, patience in learning and developing thru the phases of growth.”
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During the question portion of the competition, Nguyen was asked: “What do you think is the most pressing issue of your generation?”
Her response: “The most pressing for our generation is our ignorance. We have so many technology and we just use social media, and we just care about ourselves. We should spend our time to think and feel about what is happening with the Earth right now. And one small action multiplied by a million people can transform the world.”
As Miss Earth Vietnam 2018, Nguyen’s goals include being an advocate for the environment and striking a balance between industrializing and preserving Vietnam’s rivers and forests, as told by her profile.
In her Eco Video for Miss Earth, she discusses the Mekong Rover Protection Project, which was inspired by a woman who has been cleaning the river of waste for the past twenty years.
The Miss Earth Pageant uses the beauty pageant entertainment industry as a mode of promoting environmental awareness, according to the event’s website.
The winner of Miss Earth becomes an ambassador for environmental protection campaigns across the world, with past beauty queens working with the United Nations, WWF, Greenpeace and other environmentally conscious organizations.
See her journey recap video here:
Congratulations to Miss Earth 2018 and the first to win the title for Vietnam!
Images Screenshot via YouTube / Miss Earth
