The project’s purpose is to create a tool that will hopefully enable children in grades 1-5 (ages 6-11) to navigate issues of tobacco and tobacco use.Local statistics show that the onset of tobacco use is usually between the ages of 12-14yrs old.Previous interventions have focused mainly on current users whilst those who have not begun are basically left to fend for themselves.The project aims to equip children in the target age-range with the necessary skills and knowledge to deter them from taking up the habit.
Principal Andrew Tabelual revealed alarming news that smoking may be increasing amongst his students as used cigarette butts are being found in school bathrooms.Instances of students found using tobacco have been reported to school officials.In a small sampling of students, it was revealed that one, or both, of the parents used tobacco in one form or another.Men were generally identified as the smoker, whilst the woman chewed betelnut (with or without tobacco).Tobacco use has become so much a part of our cultural identity that we neither blink an eye at its use nor do we actively advocate against its use, particularly amongst children.Take for example, when queried as to whether they had ever been asked to prepare betelnut for their parent(s), all 10 members of a 5th grade discussion group revealed that they had.
Therein lays the problem.This normalization of tobacco has produced an attitude of tolerance and greatly increases children’s access to the product.Sales schemes such as buying-by-the-stick and kiddie packs are tactics that shopkeepers utilize that further provides for ease of access.Principal Tabelual observed that the money that parents provide for their children to purchase snacks may sometimes find its way into the tobacco jar.At fifteen to twenty-five cents per stick, do you really know what your kids are buying?Policies to restrict such practices are sorely in need.However, it is not enough to introduce regulations when parents and/or relatives continue to view tobacco usage as little more than a minor irritant.Unless, and until, tobacco usage is de-normalized we will continue to be plagued by tobacco use and its consequences: cancer, heart disease, chronic-obstructive pulmonary disease, blindness, impotence and diminished public resources among others.
