Update: 12:43PM Finance Pacific's Miss India Fiji 2009, Naziah Ali, leaves for Durban, South Africa on Thursday to compete in the Miss India Worldwide pageant.
"I want to promote Fiji and its people that even though we dont have much money but people are there for each other," she said.
"We are also a multi-cultural country and thats what I will promote."
A communications and publication co-ordinator for UNIFEM Advancing Gender in Political Governance in the Pacific program, Ms Ali said she would promote Fiji as place where women are not valued for beauty only but as people who contribute to the development of the country.
The pageant proper begins on Sunday.