I grew up among a heroic people, where equality isn’t a right, it’s conquered by mighty arms. Despite all difficulties, we are a symbol of love and hope.

As Miss Empathy 2020, it is my responsibility to the sons of this land, to be a gentle mother, to inspire our children that all life matters, to remind them that the elders of today are our destiny of tomorrow. Let’s fight so that no one is left behind.

Thou art a beautiful, strong, and intrepid colossus, and thy future mirrors thy greatness!

We have to believe everything can be better and the sun will shine over a new world. In thy bosom, O freedom! 

Let’s win this battle together, our life, in thy bosom, more love. Thou wilt see that a son of thine flees not from battle.

We need to embrace differences and respect others, I shall be the ambassador and symbol of eternal love.

Hail! Hail!

* the parts in italic are part of the Brazilian national anthem

“In thy bosom, O freedom, our brave breast shall defy death itself!

Empathy

Love as a principle and order as the basis; progress as the goal (Order and Progress)” 

It was April 2020, little by little we were getting to know the harsh reality of the pandemic that we all faced. We were in quarantine, worried about how to survive, both physically and financially. 

While our parents and grandparents were in ICU beds, our president was talking about numbers, economics and progress, ignoring the most important: all of his people, with their multiple realities. They all had something in that moment in common that united us, the anguish, the fear of losing someone we love at any moment. Within his ignorance, he could not understand, have the empathy to feel the suffering of thousands of Brazilians who had lost their loved ones, who had no more air to breathe.

I needed to be one of the many voices that, within all this chaos that we were in, could still see hope, remind everyone of compassion, of our humanity and our ability to feel and understand each other.

That is when the idea of the Miss came to me, this woman who is only one, but who can be the bearer of a voice that echoes for thousands, representing their origins and ideologies, representing their country.