Miss Zimbabwe
Miss Tourism Zimbabwe was founded in 1980 when the national beauty pageant was transformed from Miss Rhodesia after attaining independence. In 2012, the Miss Tourism Zimbabwe was renamed the Miss Zimbabwe (Miss World Zimbabwe) pageant. Basically there are two licenses for Zimbabwe into the Miss Tourism Zimbabwe: Miss Universe and Miss World. Since 2002, the pageant did not send its winner to the Miss Universe pageant due to losing the franchise of the pageant. Automatically, the pageant since 2002 sends the grand winner to the Miss World competition. For many years, Kiki Divaris was the "driving force behind the Miss Zimbabwe competition".
Mutare
Although the city was founded in the late nineteenth century, the region has a long history of trading caravans passing through on the way to the Indian Ocean, from ports such as Sofala, to inland settlements, such as Great Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is also renowned for its soapstone carvings and figurines which are evidence of these trade routes, dating as far back as the late African Iron Age (c. 900 AD) right up to the colonial period. A large hoard of soapstone carvings, jewellery, weapons, sherds and other objects were found in the vicinity of Mutare by the British archaeologist E M Andrews at the beginning of the twentieth century - they were later donated by the trustees of Cecil Rhodes to the British Museum in 1905. The soapstone figures, which are both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic, might have been part of a votive offering, as they were discovered near what appeared to be an altar.
Mutare was founded in 1897 as a fort, about 8 km from the border with Mozambique, and is just 290 km from the Mozambican port of Beira, earning Mutare the title of "Zimbabwe's Gateway to the Sea". It is sometimes also called "Gateway to the Eastern Highlands". Many Zimbabwean locals refer to it as 'Kumakomoyo' (place of many mountains). There is a border railway station on the railway line from Harare to Beira with a railways mechanical workshop.