Miss England Finalist

Introducing Jess Testar. She is 19 years old, self employed, born and raised in Leicestershire and she took part in the Miss England Semi-Finals on Friday 31st May and made it through to the final ! (Eek!)
At school she suffered from extreme anxiety and underwent therapy sessions including hypnotherapy to overcome her struggles. She left school with five A*’s and 4 A’s and decided to become a teen entrepreneur. She now successfully mentors a team of 200 individuals as she is a network marketer. From joining the company she is with, she was awarded top recruiter in the whole of the U.K. at the age of 18. 
Jess said “Looking back to who I was back at school, I would never have expected myself to now have the confidence to be on stage, let alone make it through to the Miss England Finals! I couldn’t be more proud. I remember feeling so alone at school suffering with extreme social anxiety, I felt as though no one understood what I was going through.”
She continued by saying: “If I made it as the next Miss England I would love to make more people aware of illnesses that can be hidden and ensure less people feel alone when suffering from any sort of mental illness – embracing more people to speak out. I wish to inspire women that anything can be achieved when you focus on positives and also on self love.”
Since January she has raised over £400 for ‘Coppafeel!’ which is a charity incredibly close to her heart – finding a tumour at the age of 16, she is passionate to raise better awareness for any signs of breast cancer. Her tumour was thankfully benign, however, she strongly believes in the education of checking yourself regularly as any abnormalities should be checked over by a doctor.
Jess has also raised over £400 for the charity ‘CCLG’ – ‘Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group’ who are experts in Child Cancer. The funding raised is used for world class childhood cancer research to help save more young lives. 
For the Miss England Semi-Finals entrants were challenged to wear/ make a ‘Green recycled Eco’ outfit.
Jess absolutely loved this challenge. She put in hours of hard work and made a ball gown out of green curtains bought at the local charity shop ‘Scope’, as well as hand sewing on over a hundred green roses made from recycled green bags and recycled hand-painted cardboard butterflies.
Her dress had two underlying messages, it firstly represented the beautiful English Countryside – as well as self love. Preserving the countryside is so important, as so many people are just throwing away clothes after one use which is filling up landfills. In fact, it is estimated that £140 Million worth of clothing each year is just thrown into landfill. Shocking and causing various environmental problems.
The self love message was very important, as, during her time at school, suffering with anxiety made her completely lose who she was as a person. Her dress has messages such as ‘You are Beautiful’ and ‘You are worthy’ on it just as a reminder to whoever is reading the dress.