Although the proliferation of beauty pageants signifies the growth of the local modelling and beauty industry, it also opens doors for exploitation of young women, especially when you take into consideration that there are no regulatory bodies to set standards and protect the rights of the women.
International Supermodel, Kaone Kario has been fingered in a scam that has robbed aspiring models who were looking to learn from the star through a modelling workshop she was purported to be headlining.
The workshop, dubbed Professional Modeling workshop was scheduled to run from November to December 2020 with a registration fee of P950.
Lending credibility to the widely advertised workshop, Kario took to her social media platforms with a signed statement in 2020 confirming the collaboration between herself and two parties; Creative Chaos and Mossyde. Safie Sekgwa and Katlego Banks Mmale were named as the men behind the project. However, over two years later, after collecting an unconfirmed number of P950s from young Batswana, the workshop has not yet happened.
One disappointed aspiring model who is still reeling from the shock of being swindled spoke to The Voice about how her dreams of one day walking catwalks and runways, side by side Kaone Kario, went up in flames.
She recalled coming across a freshly set up Facebook page under the name, “Professional Modelling workshop,” and an announcement that Kaone Kario would be hosting a workshop in Botswana for aspiring models such as herself.
According to the post, the workshop would run from the 28th-29th November in Gaborone, 5th to 6th December in Francistown and finally the 9th-10th December in Maun.
“I went ahead and registered soon after. The P950 registration fee was no bother for most of us considering all the benefits that were supposed to come with the experience. ”
These benefits included portfolio building, networking sessions, access to international modelling agencies and a photoshoot with Kaone Kario at Makgadikgadi pans for the top two participants.
She said that in the first week of November 2020, they were notified via SMS that the workshop had been postponed due to Covid19. Putting into consideration the state of the pandemic at that time, they had no suspicions of fraudulent behaviour until the organisers postponed again from 2021 into 2022.
“Finally fed up, we reached out to them in 2022 and thereafter they announced a new date for March 2022 at Mantlwaneng theatre. That was the last we heard from them.”
Shortly after, Kario wrote on her Instagram that she would not be attending the workshop because she had not been paid by her Batswana counterparts.
“Kaone Kario advised all who registered for the workshop to email her and I did. Her seemingly automated response was that she had not been paid for the event and would therefore be pulling out of it.”
While Kario said in her e-mail that she would be hosting her own workshop at a date to be announced, the aspiring models said that all she wants at this point is a refund.
She pointed out that all efforts to communicate with the team behind the workshop have turned futile since they are not taking their calls and messages.
“What is disheartening is that we see them everyday on their social media statuses living their best lives,” she grimly said.
Meanwhile The Voice can confirm that these individuals are indeed unreachable since all their phones rang unanswered when reached for comment.
