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Vrstniške delavnice o tobaku 2012
30.11.2013 :: Slovenija

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General

The project O2 belongs to you is a youth developed and youth-led project, which aims at raising awareness among young people about the effects of active and passive smoking as well as about the immoral methods of the tobacco industry. Although tobacco companies might give the impression of opposing the sale of their products to young people, their marketing is still mainly based on young people – their goal is to make a CHILD smoke as early as possible so he or she will be their consumer for the whole life until the premature death.

Besides the prevention in primary school and the cure at faculties, we want to spread awareness mainly among secondary school students. Since our project is aimed at young people from the age of 12 to 25, we have appropriately adjusted our contents to the different age groups – primary school students and their parents, secondary school and university students. We are lead by the fact that the goal in a particular age group can only be achieved by using an understandable and interesting approach. Because of our rich experience in the field of youth activation and participation we will use mainly the peer-to-peer education method in our work. Our motto is ‘Nothing for us without us.'

Vision, aims and objectives

Vision

To raise awareness about the harmful effects of active and passive smoking among young people (from 12 – 25) in the chosen areas in Slovenia

•  directly (through workshops in schools, faculties and with booths) and

•  indirectly (through researches and media appearances).

Aims

To kindle bad conscience with young people, because:

•  they are poisoning themselves and their environment by smoking

•  as non—smokers they are not warning their environment that the smoke bothers and poisons them and

•  they do not promote a healthy way of living without cigarettes in their society

Objectives

To present the negative effects of active and passive smoking in an interesting and understandable way to:

•  5,000-7,000 primary school students (all 6 th and 8 th grades) and their parents,

•  5,000-7,000 secondary school students and

•  3,000-5,000 university students.

To approach:

•  1,500 young people (mainly secondary school students) through the research called Indirect Tobacco Advertising in the Media and to inform them about the immoral tools of the tobacco industry and the conspiracy towards young people.

To inform:

•  10,000 youngsters indirectly through the media.

•  To convince young people of all age to declare themselves in their group that the smoke bothers them.

•  To prevent youngsters from smoking.

Background

The history of tobacco can be traced back to the times of Christopher Columbus, when, on one of his journeys, he was offered dried leaves of an at that time unknown plant. At that time indigenous people put tobacco in some kind of tube and inhaled smoke from the other side. It was used as medical treatment at that time, but sometimes also as a means of stupefaction. Soon tobacco spread around Europe and shortly after that first opponents of smoking began to emerge on the basis of researches about the damage of smoking.

Due to the quick expansion of smoking around the world, world trade saw the opportunity to launch a new fashion. Great economic shifts made the tobacco industry flourish world-wide in the 20th century and thus it got a continually growing interest in poisoning mankind. Firstly it tried to hide it with publicity, but more and more determined activists brought this topic into public. From then on, the tobacco industry resorted to more discrete and concealed ways of advertising and focused on the most naive world population – young people. Officially the tobacco industry might be against young people smoking, but secretely this is exactly what they want – to get smokers as young as possible so that they will be buying their product for the whole life until their premature death.

Despite all warnings about the damage smoking can cause, the tobacco conspiracy and the diminishing percentage of smokers among older people, cigarette production has not decreased by a percent. The fact, that our generation was raised with false idols and ideals that were deliberately imposed on us, cannot leave us indifferent. More than half of the world population is under 25, therefore we believe that it is us, the young people, who can make a difference and thus pave the way for our children and grand-children to live in a world of media, where values that directly influence our body and us will be respected.