June 15 , 2008

YEA Completes Youth Tobacco Education, Advocacy, and Media Program

On Tuesday, June 10, the Youth Empowerment in Action team finished the Spring semester of the Youth Tobacco Education, Advocacy, and Media Program. YEA received a grant from the State of Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to work with 20 Missouri schools on tobacco education and prevention. All 20 of the schools worked with this semester were from southeast Missouri with most being in the 'bootheel'. During the program, students were taught the role the media plays in influencing habits such as smoking. The schools were given opportunities to create their own media messages including posters, music, and videos to show their own anti-smoking stance. By the end of the program, twelve public service announcement videos were chosen to be sent to the cable companies in southeast Missouri for play during commercial breaks of television shows. The kids did a great job not only creating a message to show, but demonstrating the amount they learned about the tobacco industry and their tactics to influence young peoples' decisions to smoke.