jump to navigation

Letter to Editor by ?Y Youth Published December 17, 2008

Posted by aidilhill in ?Y NEWS!.
add a comment

Going tobacco-free is a worthy gift to give

Summer Faith Griffin, Asheville • published December 17, 2008 12:15 am
Asheville Citizen-Times

The holidays are here and you can feel the anticipation in the air. It is winter and it truly is the perfect time of the year. Throughout all the joy and excitement the holidays bring, we can make the season even more enjoyable by staying tobacco-free. With more than 1,200 Americans dying every day because of tobacco use, being tobacco-free is truly the best gift you can give your loved ones as well as yourself. With so many deaths being attributed to tobacco (440,000 Americans every year) it scares me to notice that although it is a small number, some of my peers at Asheville High School are tobacco users.

The holidays are a time to be with those close to you and to build community, but with health effects ranging from emphysema to death, tobacco can split apart families and disrupt any kind of holiday cheer. I encourage the people of WNC to not only remain tobacco-free themselves, but to encourage their loved ones to do the same. Keep your holidays healthy and call 1-800-Quitnow for quitting assistance.

Summer Faith Griffin, Asheville

Read About Community Change Chronicles for CHES Credit December 3, 2008

Posted by aidilhill in Resources.
Tags:
add a comment

Health educators can receive CHES credit from the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) by reading an article about our Question Why program and the Community Change Chronicles in the January, 2009 issue of Health Promotion Practice. We hope this article will highlight for a greater audience of public health educators a way of documenting the process and impact of youth-led community work on tobacco prevention.

The test questions to receive credit can be accessed at http://www.sophe.org/content/ce_self_study_hpp.asp.

The actual Community Change Chronicles were written over the years of Question Why doing grassroots organizing around tobacco prevention with youth.  For public health educators interested in doing this work from a youth empowerment perspective, our youth empowerment model is well demonstrated in each of the chronicles and also discusses all the great advocacy work done by our youth.

Check out the Community Change Chronicles in our Resources section.