South African-born Miss USA returns home

Miss USA, Nana Meriwether, poses on the balcony of her 20th-floor penthouse in Cape Town.

South African-born Miss USA, Nana Meriwether, was on her official "homecoming" just last month. Her trip around South Africa is being made into a documentary film for broadcast on American TV screens.

Nana said, "When I won Miss USA I went to the offices of the Miss Universe Organisation and said I am on a homecoming trip to South Africa because every titleholder gets a homecoming trip and it is usually in the US, but this is my home. It is a beautiful country with so much culture, diversity, leading wines, food, amazing dance. It is a lovely country that I would love to share and I boast about a lot in America: 'I am half South African, you must come and check it out.'" Meriwether was born in Mpumalanga, where her father, Delano, was a medical missionary at the time.

Miss USA Nana Meriwether with her mom Nomvimbi and dad Wilhelm Meriwether.

Nana and her mother are frequent visitors to South Africa, which both still refer to as ‘home.’ The Meriwether Foundation, which Nana co-founded in 2005, supports a number of projects to improve the health and sustainability of communities in South Africa and other African countries.

During her official homecoming trip, Nana visited her grandparents in Soweto, spoke to some 40 young women at the Rosa Parks Library in Soweto and is also using the opportunity to lend a voice to the plight of the rhino in South Africa.

Visit to the Rosa Parks library in Soweto

So far this year South Africa is losing more than two rhinos per day to poaching. Nana said, "We don’t hear much about the plight of the rhino back in the United States and I didn’t know just how threatened they are until now." Her title means she has a voice in the US, though, and she plans to use it, "I am so glad for the opportunity to adopt the Rhino Revolution message and spread it; we can’t take the threat of extinction lightly." Nana also had the opportunity to track some white rhino on foot and meet the men and women involved in the daily protection of South Africa’s rhino. She explains, "We were walking and looking for rhino and our guides were telling us about how the poachers operate; that they are so well armed, so good at covering their tracks and so ruthless in the way that they kill these animals for their horns. It is a war." Not only Nana was moved by the plight of the rhino in South Africa, but her head of security, Nelson Feliciano, donated some much-needed radio equipment to the anti-poaching team to assist it in its daily fight.

On the final day of her visit to the Hoedspruit area, Nana officially launched the Rhino Revolution/Blue Canyon Conservancy Black Rhino Relocation Project. The first female rhino to be released through the project has been named after her. Nana was joined at the launch by Mrs. South Africa Lynne de Jager, who is also hoping to do her bit for the rhino by taking a strong message with her to China, where she will be competing in the Mrs. World competition in September of this year.