Young filmmakers awarded tobacco control prizes

Islamabad

In an attempt to counter the tobacco industry’s marketing campaign to entice youth, TheNetwork for Consumer Protection has launched a campaign to engage students of leading schools of the twin cities to make films on tobacco control and retrieve the social media space occupied by the tobacco industry.

In this regard, a special ceremony was held in Beaconhouse School, Rawalpindi, to award filmmakers who produced tobacco control films and received maximum likes on Facebook.

The first position was bagged by Qasim Mehmood, while the second and third prizes went to Muhammad Ammad and his team in the second place Muhammad Faraz and his team, respectively.

Interestingly, there was no jury to evaluate the competing films. Instead, Facebook likes were used as a criterion to select the best three.

Explaining the theme of the competition, Dr. Maria Ahmed Qureshi said that the presence of a large number of youth in the Pakistani population is quite mouth-watering for the tobacco industry. Small wonder then that it wants to make it nicotine addictive so as to create a huge number of loyal customers for at least the next 40 years.

The tobacco industry is targeting youth by using different tactics such as providing colourful posters with catchy slogans to shop keepers, power walls, retailer incentives, branding of shops, well designed and brightly coloured cigarette packs and other promotional activities.

But it’s unfortunate, Dr. Maria lamented, that whereas these families’ hospital bills will increase, so will the government’s revenue. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey 2014 shows that 13.3 per cent boys and 6.6 per cent girls (aged 13-15 years) are currently tobacco smokers. Evidence shows that smoking trends are on the rise, and if current trends continue, we will soon be facing an uncontrollable tobacco epidemic where the productivity of our future generations will be greatly reduced due to deadly tobacco related causes such as cancers, heart disease, respiratory diseases, damages to the nervous system, infertility, etc.

The winners of the contest also got a chance to express their views. Qasim said it was great experience making a film on tobacco control; tobacco use is a serious threat for health, and I feel proud now to be a tobacco control advocate myself. Ammad said it was quite challenging to build a comparison between a smoker and a non-smoker and to convince the audiences that non-smoking is the preferred option. “It was a great opportunity to learn about the tobacco industry’s tactics to promote smoking in our schools,” he added.

Faraz said that from here, we will go straight to a party where we will establish that youth can have fun without tobacco. He promised to play a pro-active role to end the menace of smoking from schools.

One of the success stories of the intervention was that a group of students were inspired to establish their own studio where they will be producing anti-smoking movies and placing it on social the media.

Sidra Qasim, the principal of Beaconhouse School said activities where students are involved directly in the entire process from understanding the concept and developing a short film to becoming an advocate of that idea gets deeply ingrained in their minds.

“Such competitions also encourage students to explore their abilities, polish their ideas and promote public health objectives. Children should not waste their parents’ money on purchasing tobacco products as this will be a deception not only towards their parents but to themselves as well,” Sidra said. She appreciated the effort of TheNetwork and said such collaborative initiatives should continue for the betterment of youth.

This competition served as a great opportunity for students to express their talent, expertise and ideas through short films. The tobacco industry is an inveterate liar and it’s time our children know the truth. The best advocates to spread these messages are children themselves.

In the end, a shield was presented to the school to appreciate its cooperation and enthusiasm during the entire process.