Maria an aspiring social worker may be the first Miss England contestant to wear a hijab. She hopes her success will help to challenge the stereotypes faced by Muslims.
While she’s not the first Muslim women to compete in Miss England, Maria is the first to wear her hijab throughout the contest.
She however, applied for Miss Birmingham (her first pageant) after a mate sent her a link to the application.
Maria thought she had little hope of success. ‘I told the organiser, “I have wardrobe restrictions and I am not a size 8,”‘ Maria tells the Daily Mail. ‘I am new to the pageant world so I didn’t know. But she said: “You don’t need to worry, there is not a bikini round anymore”‘.
‘You need to wear good clothes and you need to look polished but you don’t need to look like a supermodel.’
Maria says that as a child, she was bullied so badly for being ‘ugly’ that her tormentors would tell her to kill herself. ‘I wanted to show that it didn’t have to be this way’. On the first day of the competition, she says that she felt nervous as the only hijabi there.
‘You know when you’re nervous anyway, and then you become even more nervous because you don’t see anyone else who looks like you?’ But she impressed the judging panel so much that she was crowned first runner-up, concreting her place in the semi-finals.
Photo courtesy :Roland Leon/Daily Mirror
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