India:

Students stage anti-tobacco roadshow

Around 40 students from the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) conducted a tobacco awareness roadshow at prime locations in Bandra (W) on June 1 in partnership with the Aurobindo Chaudhuri Memorial — Great Indian Dream Foundation to promote awareness amongst smokers and non-smokers about the ill-effects of smoking.

The road show was an initiative against smoking and the use of tobacco, as part of which the students put up a street play Kya Fool Hai Hum and spoke to passersby about the ill-effects of smoking.

The eight-minute skit dealt with the adverse effects of smoking not only on an individual level, but also the adverse effects on the smoker’s personal relationships.

Volunteers from the college conducted the rally, chanting anti-smoking slogans and distributing pamphlets, beginning with SV Road and Bandra station, through Linking Road and culminating at Globus on Hill Road .

Says Karthik R Rao, a first year student at the college who participated in the rally, “We practiced the play for four days and wanted to reach out to school children moving to college, because they are the group that is most vulnerable to peer pressure and the idea of smoking.”

The response to the rally and play was enthusiastic, as crowds gathered around the students. One such 13-year-old duo at Linking Road wanted to know about how smoking would affect their lives and were told about the ill-effects of tobacco by the volunteers.

“We want to tell young children that smoking is not cool. They’re most likely to take up the habit because they relate it to freedom and being cool. That’s the myth we want to bust,” says Rao.

Mid-day.com (in), 03 / June / 2005