Hello there FIANCE 💍 @luke_tenoever I cannot wait to become your wife 🤍
The immense love, patience and sacrifice you have shown me this year has been nothing short of incredible. From the way you hold space for me with calm and steadiness in life’s tough moments, to the way we lose ourselves in laughter over the silliest things. My heart will choose you over and over again, even though you have to inspect your cricket kit for an hour first when I ask for a cup of coffee.
We have been engaged for a while now and mutually agreed that we just want to enjoy our little bubble. This one moment that just belonged to us for a little while. And now we are ready to share our joy with the world.
We said yes to forever 💍🤍
Photographer: @garrethbarclayphoto
Dress in first and last photo: @anelbothac
Dress in second photo: @dollhouse.emporium
Hair: @duchess_of_mane
MUA: @doniqueleonard
Today I had the honour of meeting the beautiful little Sisithe ❤️
Dearest little girl
This is my promise.
I promise to fight for you and other little girls like you.
To fight so you never have to hear the following: “you should just stay with your kind.”
To fight so you never have to feel the pain of being ridiculed for being different.
While I might not be able to change the sometimes too-rough fingers of the world. I stepped on this platform to fight for your place so you can have wings to soar high above them. To places where no words can dismantle you. To places where you can live out your dreams and passions. To places where you can feel the warmth of unity.
Because I too once was that little girl. ❤️
This work is deeply personal to me.
My drive to boldly create spaces for people who are differently abled comes from my past lived experiences. I repeatedly felt misunderstood, mislabeled and unaccommodated in the corporate world. I had to navigate a system that were never designed with people like me in mind. And I knew that I was not alone in this experience.
The B4i Academy, in partnership with the Mia le Roux Movement, identified the challenges faced by the differently abled within the corporate space. We have listened and we have learned.
That is why our Disability Sensitisation Workshops exist. They are more than just training, they are a call to action. A core offering designed to equip organisations with the awareness, tools and courage to lead differently. To build workplaces where inclusion is not an afterthought, but a standard. Where leadership is intentional. Where no one is overlooked, underestimated or left behind ♥️🇿🇦
#TheMiaMovement #B4i #RedefiningLeadership #NobodyLeftBehind
Posting this video is making my heart beat out of my chest a bit. But I’ve committed 🤭 Me without make up and my hearing aid is just as whole and worthy as me with my hearing aid, in my best dress and a nice face beat.
The art of being vulnerable and allowing your identity to be imperfect is what allows you to connect with yourself, with life and with others 💕 It allows you to experience life in its brightest colours 🤗
Skincare: @payotsouthafrica
RS Agent Mia received a Top Secret Mission 💋
The report with my official findings have been submitted to the RS headquarters and we are one step closer to unlocking the mystery surrounding the NEW, yet to be revealed RS Sunglasses that have been spotted in Main Street, Cape Town.
I have unlocked some information that the discount code MIA10 will give you 10% off this very next release and all other @rssunglasses.official 🤫 Hopefully this agent will not be dismissed for revealing this information.
RS Agent Mia signing off 💋🕵🏻♀️
Hair: @duchess_of_mane
Dress: @heidi_couture6
Styling: @werner_wessels
I read these words the other day by Louise Erdrich from the painted drum and it really stuck with me. “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning.
You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth.
You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.
And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
An apple that has been tasting especially sweet in its simplicity recently is reading my books. My parents were made aware that I will probably only speak Afrikaans my entire life as it is extremely challenging for someone like me to acquire a second language. Nothing to do with my intelligence, everything to do with my ability to hear. And yet here I am reading my english books. 🤓📚 Oh the joy!
Dress: @malondie_official
In high school, I once asked a question to a classmate and she looked at me like I was an alien. She had big frightened eyes. In that moment she seemed like she wanted the earth to swallow her up. She had no idea how to interact with me. For background, I was the only deaf girl growing up in a hearing community at the time.
It wasn’t even a wild question. Just something I needed clarified. Never have I blamed her, or held anger towards her. Our systems failed to educate her.
But that moment did stay with me.
For years, I made myself small. My entire identity turned into me trying to make others feel comfortable. Smile. Stay quiet. Be agreeable.
Be witty and funny. Don’t ask for help. Don’t ask for space.
Because somehow, needing access was framed as being difficult.
But if you’re a shoe size 9 and someone hands you a shoe size 6, you don’t apologize for your feet. You ask for the right size.
It is not our job to make others feel comfortable, it is our job to create space for ourselves by communicating what we need.
Our identity is worthy of taking up space. 🤍
The reason for sharing my story is because there have been many instances where I had no words to articulate or understand my experiences. I am still trying to find the words so others can find them too.
This morning I read words that @shudufhadzomusida used that helped me find more words:
“If we don’t trust who we are, we will keep editing ourselves in rooms that need us whole.”
And
“it is about remembering who you are before entering systems that were not built for you.”
Go take up space, I am rooting for you. 🤍
Photographer: @sjvanzyl
Studio: @j.f.studios
Parisian elegance / Audrey Hepburn / Bridgerton moment for my first event with @payotsouthafrica 🌸
Which I feel is so suitable as @payotsouthafrica is a french skincare brand found by Dr Nadia Payot in Paris, France.
Dress: @anelbothac (best of the best! 😭)
Hair: @duchess_of_mane (showed her some inspo and she told me she can do a faux fringe - I literally am on the floor. My Audrey Hepburn moment!)
Being differently abled doesn’t mean less. But it also doesn’t mean I’m never sad.
My journey to Miss South Africa was powerful. It was empowering. It was history in the making. But it was also heavy.
Somewhere along the way, I felt the pressure to always be inspiring. Always smiling. Always strong. As if being differently abled meant I had to prove my worth by never breaking. As if empowerment cancelled out sadness.
But the truth is, empowerment and sadness can coexist.
There were days I felt on top of the world. And there were days I felt the weight of expectation pressing down on me. 📈 Growth wasn’t linear. It was up and down. It was confidence followed by doubt. Strength followed by vulnerability.
I was afraid that if I showed my hard days, people would question my capability. That vulnerability would be mistaken for weakness. That honesty about struggle would somehow undo the progress and work on breaking the stigma surrounding persons with disabilities.
And then I realised, denying my full human experience is its own form of ableism.
Being differently abled doesn’t mean I exist to be a constant source of inspiration.
It just means I navigate the world differently.
And I’m allowed to feel all of it.
Strength is not pretending you’re okay.
Strength is allowing yourself to be human.
Strength is allowing your identity to be imperfect. ♥️
Photographer: @sjvanzyl
Hair: @duchess_of_mane
Studio: @j.f.studios
There was a time I never wanted anyone online to hear my voice. I did a lot of inner work and decided that the only way people will get used to my accent, is by being exposed to it.
Allthough I remember an ambiguous comment that I don’t need to do voiceovers over my videos. A comment I did not fully understand the intent behind it. Were they trying to say that my voice is bad in a nice way? And still to this day it sometimes will just itch me out of nowhere. A comment I always remember with a sense of cringe when I get requested to do a voiceover. And this is one of many ambiguous comments.
I don’t know what everyone else hears when I speak. My mom has lovingly told me that it’s really not bad, that I just don’t necessarily always have the right tone and volume control. I could live with that. But every time I speak online or to the public it always feels like a little wild trust game. And people are friendly most of the time, especially to my face.
Some days I am confused by ambiguous comments surrounding my voice. But then I always come to the same conclusion, the only way others will get used to it, is if I use it. I want to show it is okay to sound different.
I was never angry. I was confused. I was navigating something new as this really became a thing during my reign with many hurtful comments online as well as many ambiguous comments to my face.
Visibility is uncomfortable sometimes. But exposure creates normalization.
And representation doesn’t happen in silence.
Some days I just want to hide behind my pillow. But most days I choose to be heard, because on days like this I am reminded that the same God who created this universe also created me. 🤍
Dress: @antisocial_btq ♥️
