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Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
ZIMBABWE’S Karen Paida Mukwedeya says being shortlisted in the top three of DStv’s TLC Next Great Presenter is an honour as she is representing the country on an international platform.

The bubbly aspiring presenter managed to beat hundreds of hopefuls across Africa who had been auditioned for the presenter search.

Karen after going through gruelling sessions made it top three together with South Africa’s Carissa Cupido and Kenya’s Charlie Karumi.

Now, she is depending on people’s votes to become the next great presenter.

On Monday, voting lines were opened and all people need to do to vote for Karen is to visit the TLC Next Great Presenter website.

Voting closes on November 16 and the winner will be crowned live at a glitzy event in Johannesburg.

Of the three finalists, only one will be selected to go to London where they will present a brand new four-part series – TLC’s Most Extreme.

The series is set to premiere on TLC Entertainment (DStv channel 135) early next year. Other than that, the winner will receive an all-expenses paid holiday to the Palace of the Lost City courtesy of Sun International.

The 24-year-old Karen who describes herself as a confident, smart and passionate young lady said she was confident about landing the TLC role.

“I’m confident that I’ll land the role as TLC presenter because viewers love my smile. It’s contagious because if I smile, you’ll also smile literally.

“People also loved my style because I’m a person who relates with others well. So I’m pretty hopeful that Africans can see what the judges saw in me and vote for me,” she said.

Karen said her journey to be in front of the camera started as a childhood dream. She decided to follow it up last year when she landed a spot as a presenter for local production house Nafuna TV.

“Ever since I was young, I always wanted to be on TV. I was lucky and got a role on Nafuna where I was an entertainment presenter. Aura Mlilo, the station’s creative director encouraged me to develop my passion saying I had the face and voice for TV.”

“I listened and started presenting a web series called Nafuna Blog show – which has since been rebranded to Nafuna Now.”

Karen said after a year of being in front of the camera, she entered the TLC competition this year.

“I entered the competition after seeing an advert on Instagram. I sent my audition tape a week before they closed and later found out I’d made top 13. Much unexpected, but it was very good news,” said Karen.

“Thereafter, we went to boot camp for a week in South Africa with other hopefuls from across Africa. The training on hosting, TV presenting was intense.”

After a lot of hard work and commitment, Karen made top three and is now hoping to make ‘top 1’.

Showing that Karen had fought hard, one of the TLC show judges, Thando Thabethe said: “Choosing the Top 3 was incredibly difficult as all the semi-finalists were extremely talented.”

Karen credits her family for helping her in pursuing her career as they have been supportive of her endeavours.

“My family is extremely supportive. My mother for instance has been giving me updates from radio whenever people give me shout outs. My father at his ripe age of 50 has joined Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to lend support to me and makes sure he keeps up with everything that’s happening,” said Karen.

In future, Karen hopes to host her own talk show.

“I want to have a talk show that deals with women’s issues. I don’t want to be remembered as someone who was once in the TLC next best presenter competition only as I want to carve a name for myself and be a force to reckon with in the industry.”

@bonganinkunzi.