Marlboro TAC Breaks Guinness World Record

On Friday October 27th, the Marlboro Teen Advisory Committee (TAC) attempted to break a Guinness World Record for most arm-linked people to stand up simultaneously. While this may seem like nothing more than a silly record, there is much more than meets the eye to this heart warming story. Sanjana Akula is a current senior at Biotechnology High School in Freehold, whose trail to Guiness fame begins in her unshakable passion and work ethic. Appalled by the state of sex trafficking in the world today, Akula founded Rakshana, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting sex trafficking and proving help to victims, with divisions in four foreign countries. After a recent sex trafficking ring bust within the US in early October, Akula was inspired to help raise local awareness for this issue near and dear to her heart. Working closely with TAC, Akula organized this event at the Marlboro Recreation Center with hopes of letting the record be a symbol: we all must work together to bring awareness to sex trafficking.

Approximately 172 people showed up, blasting the current record of 146 out of the water. The group was seated around the perimeter of the room, sitting with their legs crossed and with arms linked as Akula explained both the severity of sexual trafficking and how to break the record effectively. After failing on the first try, Akula and leaders within TAC began going around trying to personally help struggling individuals, working section by section, trying to make sure everyone could stand up. Finally, on Akula’s count, after maybe and hour or so of trying, everyone pulled one another, and the group was able to stand up and break the record! The Guinness witnesses confirmed the record as broken, and soon Guiness Book of World Records will award Akula her official lace in the record books. It was a powerful and humbling experience to see an issue that is very much alive and around us be combated by a local high school student with the motivation and drive to change the world. When asked about the accomplishment, Akula told NJTV:

It was a lot of hard work and a lot of late nights, staying up until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., but it was worth it. I think we all had a lot of fun and, more importantly, 172 people left knowing a little bit more about trafficking. It’s important that we realize that human trafficking isn’t a problem that is isolated to third world countries. It’s right here in our own state and in our own country. I’ve been working to fight trafficking for over two years now and, for the longest time, I believed that awareness campaigns didn’t do much to help most causes, but this is one of the few areas where awareness is integral to solving the issue.     

Indeed, awareness is necessary to solving global problems such as these. And thanks to Sanjana Akula, the fight against sex-trafficking has gained local publicity.