LHS sophomore Santana Marks currently holds the title of Miss Teen Worldwide, along with three older women who have a goal to raise awareness to social injustices and problems with our society. The organization that the women serve through is the local Miss Teen Worldwide United, who are devoted to serving and helping the community to be a better place.

Each woman serves for a year and holds her title, and must create a platform that they want to promote or speak out against. In the meantime, once each girl has finished the development of her platform, they go to different schools or have appearances at public events to speak and share what they have worked on.

“I know one of the girls is doing bullying, and she’s gone to schools and brought awareness to her platform,” said Marks. “She had a son that was bullied and that’s why she has her platform. I’m still working on mine.”

Although Marks has not finished developing her platform, she knows that she wants to focus on inequality and how it affects people every day.

“I chose inequality as a platform because I think that it’s something many people deal with in today’s world,” said Marks. “I feel like many people struggle with fitting in and have a hard time finding a place of belonging in the world, and I feel like that’s something that needs attention drawn to it.”

Miss Teen Worldwide is a position that each girl has to qualify for, and the Miss Teen Worldwide chose Marks to represent them. Now that Marks holds the title, she gets to work against inequality for the rest of her term.

“I hold the title until next June,” said Marks. “When I finish my platform, I will go to the schools I want to and share it with them.”