Category - Learning

Tobacco Free Generation @ World Conference on Lung Cancer 2020

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Envisioning a Tobacco Free Generation
https://www.iaslc.org/iaslc-news/ilcn/envisioning-tobacco-free-generation

Presenter Heng Nung Koong, MD, founder and director of the Tobacco Free Generation International, discussed this topic during the Education Session “The ‘How To’ of Modern Tobacco Control” (ES21). In 2010, Dr. Koong wrote a journal article, “Phasing-Out Tobacco: Proposal to Deny Access to Tobacco for Those Born from 2000” as a way to think about new generations of never smokers and how best stop them from ever becoming tobacco users.

Cultivating Future TFG Leaders@Foon Yew High School, Malaysia

Statue of Confucius at Foon Yew High School, Johor Baru, Malaysia

子曰“因材施教”与“有教无类”。这也是无烟新一代(TFG)的所秉持的教育精神。为了预防年轻人染上烟瘾,TFG团队(Dr Koong, Dr Lynn 和 Emma)于2020年1月16日和2月29日到访位于马来西亚柔佛州的宽柔中学。我们有幸和约20名宽中的学生交流,探讨烟草对吸烟者乃至整个社会的害处,以及TFG将如何克服这些烟草有关的问题。

这是新山宽柔中学同济会副会长,叶姿贤,对分享会的感想:“(TFG团队) 很用心地把TFG倡导的内容传授给学生们,不只是一昧地传授无烟草的概念,更是训练同学们的表达能力以及自信,让他们可以继续感染同侪,从而实现TFG的愿景。当今社会抽烟者日益增加,身为地球的一份子,我们都有责任阻止情况继续恶化。然而,同侪之间的鼓励与渲染是最有效的方式,因此我认为TFG的概念有必要在青少年的圈子里广泛宣导,使抽烟者不再增加,甚至不再有抽烟者出现。如今我们正协力倡导TFG,愿所有人能够一同努力,创造无烟草新一代。”
新山宽柔中学教师,杨珮云老师,对TFG也给予极高的评价:“TFG programme 借由数据、机密文件、传媒包装等,充分展示烟草公司如何欺骗年轻人的手段。课程的信息多元丰富,深入浅出。(TFG团队)耐心地指导学生,学生们具有更大的信心,以一颗刚强谨守的心,拒绝烟草,更在反烟草运动上,寻见自己的能力,奉献个人力量。透过年轻人兴起,表决不吸烟,当无烟草一代的信念已经传递并且凑效,许多生命必然获得拯救。就如课程最后,无烟草世代的宣告:烟草将有末后的时刻,因为“龙”世代的火焰更甚于一支打火机(The blazing fire of the dragon generation is more powerful than a lighter. ) ”

Raffles Institution’s 17 year old students reaching out to 12 year olds to keep them away from Nicotine

Congratulations to our Tobacco Free Generation Advocates from the 2018 GapSemester programme. Regan, Ethan and Shashank mastered their TFG materials and confidently delivered the TFG sub themes to leave permanent impressions in these juniors. Shashank graduated from Concord Primary and it is exemplary that he has reached back to his alma mater, bringing along his fellow Rafflesians. Thank you Concord Primary for welcoming TFG last 18 October 2019. Your students were very attentive and participatory. Congratulations Concord Primary for these well behaved learners.

TFG AFRICA 2019 by Ms Naomi H, TFG since 2018

One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.” -William Osler

This quote from the father of modern medicine beautifully encapsulates the fundamental concepts of advocacy work: education, collaboration and empowerment. Advocacy; A once foreign concept to me, it has now begun grow close to my heart and take roots in the soil of my beliefs as the golden ticket to effecting positive change in public health. 

As part of my journey of transition from a pharmacist to a medical student, I have had the privileged opportunity to experience and be a part of a youth advocacy movement against tobacco use (Tobacco Free Generation, TFG) This was my second dabble with advocacy work – the first being a mere few months prior to this trip. Whilst the first opened my eyes to the evident importance of youth-driven advocacy work, this trip very much crystallized my conviction that the raw untapped energy of youth can be harnessed to drive positive social movements. 

Together with two youth leaders, Dr Lynn Ong, and Jessica Koong, led by a founder, Dr Koong Heng Nung, our team worked tirelessly over a week. We convened with local policy makers for planning of TFG future advances, met with community leaders to introduce the concept of TFG, and trained local youth leaders in advocacy work and public speaking. 

While it was indeed heartening to hear the policy makers and the community leaders express enthusiastic support for TFG, what impressed most strongly upon me was the work that was done involving the local youth leaders. The youth leaders were carefully selected from an impressive myriad of backgrounds ranging from poets, to public speakers and actors. Over days of assiduous coaching and mentoring by Lynn and Jessica, we witnessed the blossoming of the initially taciturn youths, leaving the confinements of their reticence to become independent and convincing advocates for the vision of a tobacco free generation.

I came away from this experience with two convictions that stood out as veridical to me. 

First: I saw how raw youthful enthusiasm can be, and ought to be harnessed and channelled towards creating prodigious change in public health. The Tobacco Free Generation has been exceptionally successful in gaining traction in various international communities for this very reason: it recognises the untapped energy and virulent influence of youths and uses it industriously to drive positive social movements.

Second and more importantly: The Tobacco Free Generation end game concept distinguishes itself from other anti-tobacco and end game strategies by a single simple ingenious strategy. It creates no divide between the smokers and non-smokers, but rather, takes on the fight against tobacco-use from a refreshing angle. By doing so, TFG successfully removes the banality from the usual platitudinous teachings about the harms of smoking and bands the smokers and non-smokers, creating a greater reckoning force in the fight against tobacco.

TFG & the Definition of Endgame

Endgame initiatives are designed to change/eliminate permanently the structural, political and social dynamics that sustain the tobacco epidemic, in order to achieve within a specific time an endpoint for the tobacco epidemic

2010 Editorial “Imagining Things Otherwise” by Prof Ruth Malone. Benowitz 1994, Borland 2003, Callard 2005, Khoo (TFG) 2010, Procter, Thomson

2011 The start of the Tobacco Free Generation Endgame Social Movement in Singapore led by the founder.

2012 World Conference On Tobacco Or Health : Endgame in Tobacco Control ” Radically Dangerous, Visionary Leaders or both?” Tobacco Free Generation was very well accepted at this international meeting in Singapore

2013 The start of the Tobacco Free Generation Endgame Education Modules , regional and international growth

2014 Tobacco Free Generation received multiple international endorsement and global traction, multiple End of Conference Resolutions, WCTOH 2015, WCTOH 2018

2015 Tobacco Free Generation Endgame Social Movement started in the Philippines. See TFG Filipinas and search TFG Balanga

2013 May Supplementary Issue Tobacco Control

A reflective piece from a youth who presented TFG in Jakarta. Oct 2018

Age does not determine one’s power when it comes to advocacy and spreading knowledge : Read Jancy’s reflection, 17 year old student.

“I was given the chance to present to a group of university students, aged between 20-23 years old. Being only 17 and only studying in high school, I was not sure how seriously they would take my presentation or how much impact I could bring. I was hesitant and unconfident at the start. However, as I watched Emma, another girl who was on the trip with us, presenting, I suddenly realised that age did not matter. Emma was only a year older than me, yet she had given such a good speech to grasp the attention of the students. I noticed that what had allowed Emma to effectively deliver her message, was her courage and her passion in conveying what she had felt strongly about. In the end, whether we are younger than the audience we are targeting or not, it doesn’t matter. What is important, is our passion and conviction when it comes down to sharing. This inspired and motivated me to be more confident in my presentation. As I presented again at the University of Indonesia, I made sure that my words came from my heart and not from the script I had prepared.” 

“Following this, we had another workshop for kindergarten teachers, at a kindergarten in Bogor. This time, it was teachers we were presenting to. The same however, applies. Age didn’t matter. Regardless of the fact that whom we were presenting to were older than we were, it didn’t change their desire to learn or our desire to share our thoughts and knowledge. I have come to understand that so long as we are passionately pursuing something, that is all that matters. Passion brings people further and passion also connects people.

“Stepping out of my comfort zone and presenting in front of a large group of people has taught me that sometimes it takes courage and a leap of faith to do what we might think is impossible or difficult, to realise that it is actually much simpler and more fulfilling than we think it is.”

TFG @ Yuan Ching Secondary School, Singapore in 2017

TFG was invited by Yuan Ching Secondary School to present to their students on 2 August 2017. We shared the rationale and progress of this social movement, with a special emphasis that a core element is not to target smokers who are unfortunately addicted before they are well informed. Compounded by the vulnerable phase of their adolescence where psychosocial maturity lags behind intellectual maturity, they are induced to experiment by ill-intended, social networks, visuals of smokers relishing their cigarettes and insidiously drawn by an extremely addictive chemical.

 

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TFG @ Asean Youth Forum on Tobacco Control, Bangkok, Thailand in 2017

TFG was invited to share at Asean Youth Forum on Tobacco Control, Bangkok Thailand on June 29 – 30. We shared the tobacco free generation message to 80 participants from ASEAN region. The Thai PM and Minister of Tourism and Sports also took time off from their busy schedules to meet the participants. TFG is glad and appreciative of the Thai government’s efforts in protecting the younger generation from the harms of tobacco.

 

TFG BKK

 

 

 

Raffles Girls Primary School, Singapore in 2017

We were invited to Raffles Girls’ Primary School on the 10th April to share the pride of the Tobacco Free Generation. A total of 1200 students attended this assembly session. Through role-playing, we were heartened that these primary school girls clearly identified that those contented-looking smokers outside malls, were actually suffering from withdrawal symptoms, minutes before lighting up. A Primary 5 girl also bravely volunteered on a separate role-playing to bring home the message that we are not antagonistic to a smoker as many, were unknowingly addicted when they were young.

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