Smoking is something that everyone with enough judgment should eschew in his or her life. However, there are still large numbers of people that use this dangerous weapon every day. Governments from all over the world have tried different approaches to alleviate this problem, such as implementing smoking bans in working and public spaces, but this issue only continues to worsen.
Consequently, a group of Global Perspectives students from YCIS Beijing decided to take on a role to educate people on the dangers of smoking in our school and around our community.
First and foremost, we researched key questions of our topic and opted for 10 facts to be used in our surveys and poster campaigns. These ten statistics are as follows:
1. 3, 000 children smoke their first cigarette every day.
2. 20% of every 100,000 15-year-old smokers will die before the age of 70.
3. Peer pressure, media influences, weight lost aid, child innocence, family influence and feelings of invincibility are the major reasons why teenagers start smoking.
4. 70-90% of Americans are exposed to second-hand smoking.
5. 3 in 5 of doctors in China do not know that smoking causes heart disease.
6. 60% of male Chinese doctors are smokers.
7. Those who smoke will live 7-10 years shorter.
8. 6 million people die annually because of tobacco.
9. 100,000 people die from exposure to second-hand smoking in China.
10. Approximately 150,000-300,000 children below 18 years old get respiratory infections from second-hand smoke.
We designed two forms of bilingual posters that we put up around the school. Written in English, Korean, and Chinese, these multilingual posters were made so that everyone could easily understand the facts in their first language.
In a survey where we tested respondents on the accuracy of these facts, we found that a great majority of them guessed less than five out of the ten correctly. After the posters we made were displayed, a majority of respondents surveyed were able to distinguish the facts and had a higher overall score than before.
In addition to working in our community, we also collaborated with other schools in Tianjin, Hangzhou, Indonesia, and Australia to enlarge our influence and raise awareness on the dangers of smoking in the minds of today’s younger generation.
At a Christmas bazaar that took place in our school, we organized a campaign to further aid us in our goal to educate young minds on smoking. We displayed footage of a smoking experiment to those who visited our booth, which depicted the harm that smoking causes to our respiratory system.
Overall, we are elated with our efforts in this project, as we were able to inculcate the menace of smoking to a diverse range of people from our school, our community, and other international schools. We hope you will be inspired by our actions and remember that education is the first step in solving most problems.
About UNIT-E
UNIT-E was founded in the spring of 2010 with the aim of establishing a non-profit, student-run magazine for international students in Beijing. Staffed by current students from a range of international schools, the magazine provides an amalgam of cultural tidbits, fragments of Beijing student life, and a broad spectrum of unique perspectives from a diverse group of young adults.
UNIT-E was founded in the spring of 2010 with the aim of establishing a non-profit, student-run magazine for international students in Beijing. Staffed by current students from a range of international schools, the magazine provides an amalgam of cultural tidbits, fragments of Beijing student life, and a broad spectrum of unique perspectives from a diverse group of young adults.
Photo by UNIT-E
