A disability teacher is in the running to be named Miss World Australia.
While the combination of roles may seem odd at first comparison, the similarities are obvious to Charlotte Fung.
The 26-year-old was formerly a music teacher at Springwood, Crestmead and Browns Plains primary schools before discovering her true passion – helping students with disabilities.
Now she’s pursuing another dream: pageantry.
And as part of this year’s Miss World Australia competition, Ms Fung is fundraising for a charity that shares her passion for students.
Her goal is to raise $20,000 for Variety – the Children’s Charity of Queensland.
Already, she has raised more than half of her goal through fundraisers she held across the city.
Ms Fung said the money would go towards funding things like modified playground equipment, bicycles for children with disabilities, or specialist medical equipment for children with illnesses.
Variety also provides grants, scholarships and experiences to sick, disadvantaged, and disabled children.
“This pageant has a real humanitarian focus,” she said.
“Volunteering, philanthropy, and also being well-rounded.
“Beauty beyond the looks, and more beauty from the heart.”
Ms Fung always dreamed of becoming a teacher, but only became attracted to pageantry after leaving university.
“I was interested because I’ve always been volunteering in my community,” she said.
“I was looking for a challenge to make myself better not just in terms of deportment and presentation, but also skills that I’ve developed such as catwalk or photography, and also having the platform to raise this amount of money.”
Ms Fung said teaching music was her calling – something she is currently doing at a nearby special school.
“I knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was in my music classroom in primary school,” she said.
“Now that I am a music teacher, I just love seeing the growth in not just musical skills, but social skills.
“Now I’m in special school, many of the kids who might not have a voice use music to express themselves through movement and sound.”
Miss-world-australia-2025.raisely.com/charlotte-fung.
