The Woman Who Made Me the Proudest in 2025: Harashta Haifa Zahra

This should come as absolutely no surprise but the woman who made me the proudest in 2025 is Harashta Haifa Zahra. I consider myself lucky that I had the privilege and honour of working with her for 12 months and there is so much to learn from this remarkable young woman. 

You see, many people think that it's only the bright lights, the shows, the glamour, the excitement that we live for but trust me, there's only so much that you can take of that before it becomes repetitive. What really mattered that most to me was the people I met and the potential I saw in them. Every title holder came in with an open mind and an open heart. Each one came in with their own experiences, ideas and expectations - also their own baggage. That's the beauty of working with people. But it's also the hardest part because you just hope that they will have a good year and that what you think you do to guide and support them will be met, or at least understood, with the understanding that it came with the very best intentions. And because we are human, we don't always get it right. So it was a constant process of learning, reflecting and sometimes apologizing. 

I always asked them the same question: What do you want to do with this? And then I also tried to explain to them that there's no time to waste because a year goes by so fast and then there's no time for regrets. The other thing I told them that with the right mindset one year in a role, or job, like this could equate to 4 years at the University of Life is you open yourself up to that. And people with the 'lifelong learning' mentality will know that includes the good, great, the mundane, the disappointments, the thrills, the bad and the ugly. Because trust me, things do not always go right and it often ends up being an emotional roller coaster. I am still a firm believer that our lives are a collection of experiences that prepare us inform us, teach us and prepare us for something that comes along the way while we are on this Earth. Even when we don't really always understand why the hard times seem so hard. 

What was beautiful (and in some cases you might wonder why) was that Harashta went through the whole spectrum of what comes with this: the love, the hate (which was always the worst part to endure), the praise, the criticism, the labels, the highs, the lows, the times of being insanely busy, the times of nothing to do, the gruelling hours of traveling, the jetlag, the missed alarm clocks, the pressure, the privilege, the thrills, the disappointments and the best of all, the chance to see the world with different eyes. 

We can only really understand the true burden and blessing of something like a title if we experience it and it's not always that pretty. That's why pageants last for a few weeks because you just hope that it will at least give an indication of who is ready and who is not. And then you hope that whoever is chosen will be somewhat ready - because at such a young age (and Harashta was one of the youngest winners at only 20) you are never truly ready for the unknown and it takes time to grow into any role and that's why a year goes by so fast. Just when you truly find your feet, it's over and you don't really get to do it over. It's basically life in a nutshell. 

Of course, with the above, I am hoping to give you a better understanding of what really comes with a role that we often revere, crave for, criticise, insult and all of this while there's an actual human being just trying to do their best with the prior life experience they have and at the same time constantly trying to please, improve, and evolve. It's tough! 

Now the very first thing that you experience, when the lights fade, after the initial shock and the excitement and the disbelief is the elation. That's also where a potentially lonely journey starts because you are probably the only one on that stage who can truly feel that way because your hard work paid off but then you have to go and see all your peers who do not get that same feeling. And every person handles it in a different way. But nonetheless, you can't really focus on that because you are caught up in the moment and when you grab your phone and the messages from a very proud family, organization and country keep rolling in. And being the first woman from Indonesia, one of the most passionate and vocal fan bases in pageantry, it came in truckloads for Harashta. Suddenly you are a star to those who love these things in your country. And it was always such a beautiful thing to watch them be showered with so much love. 

Sadly, only one country is ever truly happy and very soon after the high high is met with the low low of getting the messages that range from "you do not deserve this", "you bought the crown", "it was rigged", "you are the worst ever" to the downright unspeakably hateful and awful messages that reflects the very worst of humanity. And the attacks on this young girl were relentless. When I saw how horrible the messages were some years, I used to just say a quiet prayer: "Please God just don't let her/his family see all of this!" Why the family? Because as protectors of the ones we love, we can't shield our cherished ones from this pain. At the same time, these young people are remarkably strong but it does do a lot of damage to them. And as humans, we tend to be more concerned about what other people will think if they saw these messages. 

Then the days after are surprisingly quiet as your county puts together a homecoming and when you are from a pageant powerhouse country, it comes with great joy, great opportunities, and also great pressure. All while you are supposed to start figuring out what you want to do with this "platform" all while also learning to understand that large parts of it will be beyond your control. Of course, in the case of Indonesia, there was a great demand, great excitement and a great homecoming schedule. 

And then when that is over, the criticism keeps coming in faster and faster because there are always people who want to bring you down and not long after the jobless and not traveling labels are stuck on (I will write a whole article about that in the future!) and people just seem to get nastier before they eventually let it go. Talk about bitter with the sweet! And from what I saw, year after year, it takes time for EVERYONE to grow into the role. Some got more comfortable with it than others and Harashta was one of the most beautiful examples of someone who found the perfect balance of embracing the good, the bad, the ugly and the exciting... all with that beautiful pure heart (not always truly sure why) but all with the desire to learn, to grow, and to do the job well. So while you trying to navigate all of this, you do have the moments that are magical but also the days where you think perhaps it's not all it's cracked up to be. But you do grow stronger if your mind is strong and you learn to let the bad wash away in the shower and approach each day with the promise it might hold.  

From the other side, as the people who try to turn a reign into something that is meaningful, educational and a relatively good experience, you are also in a kind of difficult position. The greatest challenge is that you are dealing with a unique and different human being. So you have to test the waters and get to know them and try to understand them. You have to learn when to be caring, when to be tough, when to apply tough love and try to set some sort of bar for them to reach and in most cases exceed. But that is always trial and error because of the human (error and emotions) element. So it is a road you start walking together and the road is not always smooth. That's why the second half there's some sort of a groove if the person understands you do want was it is best for them and they understand that life has to be taken on with seriousness, expectations, praise, criticism and a very good dose of humor. (And my humor tends to be so dry or ridiculous that people mostly don't get it!) But this girl just took everything in its stride and the growth that I saw still blows my mind as I am sitting here thinking about how proud of her I am. 

As I got to spend more time with her, especially in 2025, my love and admiration for Harashta just grew and grew and I am going to try and explain it in points: 

Her background (religion and upbringing): Being the first Muslim winner of the title, I was very apprehensive about doing things wrong and sometimes that brought in pressure. However, it was such a great opportunity for very thoughtful and thought-provoking conversations.  Our conversations became vehicles for educating each other through how we saw and understood the world and I honestly think I benefited more from this than she did it. It just gave me this renewed realisation that we all just want to have a good life, a life that we can be proud of, that our families and the people that matter can be proud of. I also learned that the very thing that might make us apprehensive can also be the thing that draws us to someone because as you become comfortable with someone, you can ask them questions you can't necessarily ask random strangers and the insights you get from that are priceless... and I ended up with such admiration for her faith and and the way her parents raised her. 

Her values, especially her kindness: As her reign came to an end and of course sadly I was not there to witness it, I took stock of it and again I realised how much promise the world holds if all people had the mentality and the values of this young woman. One of her most special and endearing attributes is her kindness. This is an innate quality but with the right nurturing it is enhanced and her parents did such a great job in teaching her that respect and kindness go a very long way. And it always astounded me how much kindness and respect she gave to people - very often more than we deserved and more than what was afforded to her. 

Her resilience: When we are young we tend to be more fearless and we can bounce back faster and watching her handle everything that came her way filled me with so much awe. No matter how tough the days were, she would always regroup very quickly and the next day she would show up with this incredibly beautiful "let's do this again" attitude. And I can't just thank the wonder of youth, it is also very much the person and their ability to take life as it comes. I was often overwhelmed in the best way possible by this girls spirit and how she could just keep going. What a joy and an honor to witness! 

Her strength: Very few people know who they are at 21 (she turned a few weeks after she won the title) and most of us try to figure ourselves out for our entire lives and that's why I have so much respect for Harashta is the strength I witnessed, not just the ability to quickly learn and accept that there will always be the ones that want to rain on your parade (or reign) and that trying to focus too much energy on the ugliness of the hate that you get. And that takes real strength. It was so much more than that - I saw the real strength in her being: the ability to keep pushing herself, the ability to keep absorbing and filtering what's good and must be kept and what must be let go, the strength of her belief in herself and the strength of convictions. There are not enough words in the world to explain to you how much I respect and appreciate that. 

Her natural curiosity: One of the most beautiful things for somebody of my age is to experience the world through the eyes of the young. Traveling her became such a beautiful experience that I wished it would never stop. Because I was so job focused, I often forgot to take the rest in and watching how she was just in awe of this world, its cultures and its people - it was just so special to watch and very often I would just have this sense of awe because I got to see the world with different eyes and I got to see how much promise this world holds when you spend time with someone who wants to experience the whole world with its glory and its flaws. It gave me so much hope and inspiration, especially during this turbulent time in the world. 

Her heart for people: We often become so set in our ways and it is so special to see someone coming along who just has a heart for people. Imagine a job where you are currently thrust in a position where you have to hold your own in any situation with ANYONE! It takes a very special human being to be able to put aside your own feelings and treat everyone equally and give everyone a fair chance. It's the heart for people that prevail in this case and as time went by, it made me so incredibly proud that she started feeling more and more comfortable in a role where she could not only witness conversations between people of all walks of life, but be part of it and eventually lead them. That was perhaps one of the most rewarding things to watch. 

Her heart for duty and service: Duty and service have always been incredibly important to me and you would often hear me say the crown/sash makes you a servant of the people. Some got it, others did not. Watching Harashta in the difficult moments of being with people who are not as fortunate as the rest of the world remain so incredibly special because of the way she approached this: with purity of heart, lots of love, lots of kindness, respect and genuine empathy and sympathy. I often ended up leaving these moments with her, looking at her and thinking "What a wonderful world" ! 

So I had the life enhancing honour of watching this girl with so much potential grow into a woman with even greater potential. Serving her was one of the greatest honors of my life and the beauty that I was privy to carried me through many of the most challenging days that were to follow. 

All I can say is THANK YOU, Harashta and I couldn't be any prouder of you. You are such an incredibly special human being and you will never probably even know how much you taught me and how much you inspired me. What a wonderful world... because YOU are in it!