CRANBERRY TWP — Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters of South Africa, the reigning Miss Universe, appeared in the township Friday with a message of empowerment and self-reliance for those in attendance.

“If we take hands and if we stand together we can be unbreakable,” she said.

Nel-Peters was inspired to create the program after she was involved in a violent carjacking shortly after being crowned Miss South Africa last year.

“I stopped at a red traffic light and saw four men on my left hand side, and they made me feel very uncomfortable,” she said. “I knew ‘something isn’t right.’”

Nel-Peters said often a person’s instinct can be to dismiss that feeling as being overly sensitive or unrealistic, but often that feeling is right.

The men, joined by a fifth kept looking at her.

“Next moment they surrounded the car,” she said. “They had weapons with them … and pointed them at my head.”

She surrendered and told the men to steal whatever they wanted.

“I tried running away,” she said. “They grabbed me and pushed me back at the car.”

They told her she was coming with them.

“I tried to flee. The only options I had left were to fight or to freeze,” Nel-Peters said. “And I decided I wasn’t going to freeze.”

Earlier that year, Nel-Peters took an empowerment course that taught self-protection, among other things.

“They taught me a few skills,” she said. “Don’t go to the second destination ... If something feels wrong it probably is wrong.”

They also taught her how to fight an attacker when left no other choice.

“I punched the guy in his throat, and he choked and I managed to push him off me, pull myself back up and get out of the car somehow and run away.”

She ran into the traffic to escape and a young women helped her, giving her a phone to call for help.

In the time after the attack, Nel-Peter’s said she struggled to return to a normal life.

She was always anxious and startled by the smallest things, she said and eventually sought professional help through therapy.

Through that and through the support of friends and family, Nel-Peters said she recovered from the incident stronger than ever.

She encouraged those in the audience to be sure to be there for friends and family who may be going through hard times.

“I think back to what a great support system I had,” she said. “I can’t stress that enough, to just be a friend; be a reaching hand; know what is going on in your friends’ lives in your neighbors’ lives.”

Nel-Peters later was named Miss Universe and decided she would use her position to create a campaign that trains women to be physically, mentally and emotionally prepared to deal with extreme situations, including sexual harassment, assault and abusive relationships.

She partnered with self-defense experts, trainers and other educators in formulating the program, and spent months traveling across the world to raise awareness for her empowerment crusade.

She closed the presentation thanking the township center for having her and then met and took pictures with members of the audience with Olivia Suchko, Miss Pennsylvania USA, and Kailey Grill, Miss Pennsylvania.

Mary Grace Wilson, of Cranberry, said she resonated with Nel-Peter’s warning to trust your feelings even despite fears of being wrong.

“I have a daughter who was just here, and I worry about her safety. I think that she’s exactly right where your first feeling is fear and then you feel guilty for being afraid,” she said. “You try to eradicate that feeling of fear but sometimes it’s justified and it’s hard to strike a balance with that.”

She said it was impressive to see Nel-Peters working to help others after such a traumatic experience.

“It’s hard to imagine someone at her age going through that kind of a frightening experience and coming out with such a drive to support other people,” Wilson said.

Brittany Marburger of Evans City said she was amazed by Nel-Peter’s story of overcoming such an experience.

“We were just impressed with how she was able to conduct herself and get out of a bad situation,” she said.

Marburger was also glad to hear that pageants don’t only focus on appearances and take more into account the person’s character and background.

“I think it’s great that pageants now are more about your character instead of just about what you look like,” she said.

Friday evenings event was co-sponsored by Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau.