A story of recovery, resolve and strength
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 let were to fight or to freeze,” Nel-Peters said. “And I decided I wasn't going to freeze.”
Find out what happened next in Sunday's Butler Eagle.
