A DROYLSDEN teenager who has championed autism awareness has been crowned a national pageant winner.
Keighley Murphy has won the Teen Endeavour United Kingdom title after representing Tameside for a year.
Balancing college and training to become a nail technician, the 18-year-old has used her pageant platform to raise awareness for autism in females and support a charity.
“Some may think pageants are just crowns and pretty dresses but it is much more,” she told the Correspondent.
“It involves confidence building, making many new friendships, team work and charity work.”
During her 12 months representing the borough, Keighley raised around £100 for Streetz CIC – a charity supporting youth homelessness. She held an online raffle around Christmas, led a raffle and tombola stall at a fair, and handed out free Christmas sweets and balloons to children.
At the national competition, Keighley said her success came from both her interview and on-stage performances.
“I won the title by doing an interview with the judges that was about me and about my platform, which is about raising awareness for autism in females,” she explained,
“I then competed in three on-stage rounds – fashion wear, evening wear and endeavour wear. Endeavour wear is a round where a speech you have written is read out and is something meaningful to you.
“For this, I dedicated it again to my platform about raising awareness for autism in females. To go along with this, I also attend events and hand out fidget toys. I also send them to people on request and, so far, I’ve been asked to send these as far as Scotland.”