Nigeria –
Lilian
Age: 22
Lilian’s favourite foods are rice and plantain and she likes watching Baggage on TV and listing to 2Face Idibia. She doesn’t have a favourite book, but likes movies like Think Like A Man, Blended, Friends With Benefits, Bridesmaids and Twelve Years A Slave. Her favourite actor is Angelina Jolie, because ‘she’s creative and can switch between roles’.
Her favourite place in Nigeria is Lagos, and she says the best thing about Africa is its cultural diversity. Outside her home country, she’d like to visit California for the opportunities she believes it would provide her to improve her career.
Lilian’s role model is Oprah Winfrey, because of her strength, and the person who has most influenced her life is her mother, ‘because she has always believed in me and encouraged me to follow my dreams’
She describes herself as ‘spontaneous, easy-going, focussed and confident’ and says her best assets are that she’s ambitious, a good listener, flexible, persuasive, competitive, independent and original.
Ghana
M’am Bea
Age: 25
Ghanaian M’am Bea lists her occupation as ‘Acting Trainee Manager/Fashion Designer’, and has a diploma in Management Finance. Her favourite foods are yam and nkontomere stew, fufu, palm nut soup and jolof rice. M’am Bea likes music by Sarkodie, Mafikizolo, John Legend, Wizkid and D’Banj.
Her favourite place in Ghana is Aburi Garden and she says the best thing about Africa is that ‘it expresses diversity through colours and we are not ashamed to exhibit that’. Outside of her home country, her favourite place in the world is South Africa: ‘it offers so many opportunities and it offers young people the opportunity to study and become great people in the world’.
M’am Bea’s role model is her mom, because ‘she is strong, humble, God-fearing and puts her family first’.
Inspired to enter Big Brother Hotshots by her talent and ‘the unity of all African countries coming together as one to learn and share’, M’am Bea also lists making it onto the show as her proudest achievement so far. ‘It will give me room to showcase my personality and influence young, gifted youth out there,’ she says.
Describing herself as a ‘driven, humble and respectful self-starter’, M’am Bea says that viewers can expect her ‘true self’, her ‘fashion sense, sense of humour, cooking skills, intelligence and wise words’ to shine through on screen. She says she’s ‘humbled and overwhelmed’, knowing that the continent’s eyes will be on her.
Namibia
Luis
Age: 23
Associate Producer Luis has a B. Tech in Financial Information. He loves anything made with or from potatoes, his favourite book is The Alchemist and he enjoys the music of Kanye West. His favourite TV shows are Game of Thrones, The Fixer and The Good Wife, and his all-time favourite film is Ali.
Luis says his favourite place in Namibia is the river beds in his home town of Rundu, ‘where the mighty Okavango Delta flows into the ocean’. He says that the best thing about Africa is ‘the diverse cultures – however different, every single one is somehow relatable by being connected to the next one’. He calls Los Angeles ‘the city of dreams where anybody can make it, given the right amount of perseverance and correct hustle’.
His role models are his parents because they had the biggest influence on his life. ‘They took care of not only my siblings and I, but also my cousins, grandmother and their own siblings,’ he says. ‘They taught me spiritual values from infancy – those values have brought me this far in life’. He’s most proud of the achievement of graduating from university while being Namibia’s top male international model.
Luis entered Big Brother Hotshots because Namibia has never been represented by anyone from the Okavango region before. ‘I’d be grateful to tell my story to Africa – hopefully it inspires many others with a similar past,’ he says. He’s excited to have the whole continent watching him andIf he wins the grand prize, Luis will build a film and television studio in Namibia.
