Anti-Tobacco day: The experience in Amanambakkam

In this age of increasing tobacco consumption, an enormous number of people die of this dreaded practice. It causes cancer, lung diseases and several other complications. It is necessary to pause for a moment and to consider what can be done about this globally prevalent issue. We, the Amanambakkam village team conducted a program to observe ‘Anti-Tobacco day’ on May 30, 2013 to spread awareness on the use of tobacco.

We had an array of things lined up, including talks on the importance of Anti-tobacco Day, a demonstration and experiments to signify the ill-effects of tobacco, a mime and videos depicting the harmful effects of the same.  This was conducted in the evening from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

The program was conducted in the outdoors, in the playground of the school. The place was spacious, shady and suitable for this event. Once we reached the village, the ground-work for the program was done. We split ourselves into sub groups and focused on sticking the posters, setting up the videos in the laptop and inviting the Chief Guest. We managed to gather a crowd consisting of around 50 people of which 25 were young children.

We started the program at 5:30 p.m. The welcome speech was given and the Chief Guest was felicitated. The Chief Guest, Mr.Munnuswamy, the Panchayat head of Amanambakkam, addressed the gathering and shared his perspective on the topic of Anti-Tobacco. It was encouraging to note that  the villagers were aware of the harmful effects of consuming tobacco and alcohol. The Panchayat Head even shared an interesting aspect of their village. He said that the village of Amanambakkam was free of illegal alcohol.

In our inaugural speech, we stressed on the importance of ‘Anti-Tobacco’ day and its origin. It is noteworthy to find that on the ‘Anti-Tobacco’ day (originally observed on May 31^st each year) a 24-hour tobacco-free period is supposed to be maintained throughout the world. Next we had a stunning demonstration for the villagers. Here, we showed the reaction of coke in response to ‘Mentos’ candies. We put a few candies into a newly opened coke bottle which actually made the coke to shoot up to a level of 2 ft above the ground. It was fascinating to watch this demonstration. Later, we used this activity as an analogy to convey the message that ‘harmful substances can have severe consequences inside our body’. The kids who were all having impressionable minds enjoyed seeing this demo.

The mime show which we had next was a captivating one. It had a specific story line of a young boy who is tempted to indulge in smoking gets caught in this dreaded habit and faces severe consequences in his life. All the actors were non Tamil-speaking members. Yet, the mime show helped to convey the theme by going beyond the language barrier. For the benefit of the audience, a parallel narration in Tamil was also done.

We also felt the need to convey the amount of money that could be saved. Hence, based on a survey taken last week, we estimated the number of cigarettes sold per day. The projected savings were shown to the villagers through a power-point presentation. Next, a demonstration of how the lung of a smoker gets affected and also how it can be brought back to a normal state was shown. This was done using a glass of coke and water.  Initially we had a glass containing only coke. This black color solution represented the lung condition of a smoker. Later, as we poured fresh water into the glass, the color of the solution became lighter and finally became crystal clear.  Apart from the obvious reference to cleanse the lung of the impurity, our demonstration also indicated that the only way to remove negative influences from life is by pouring in enough of pure & positive energy into our lives. Where there is abundance of positivity, there is no room for negativity.This can be done by thinking positive and staying positive.

We concluded the program by inviting the villagers to have a look at our ‘Anti-Tobacco’ videos. They were professional videos which were thought-provoking and inspiring. We believe it helped to create a positive influence in the villagers. One of the videos was a talk by the Superstar Rajinikanth, who himself used to be a compulsive smoker. In the video, he stressed the importance of being in the right and conducive environment to stay effective and be successful. The posters that were prepared by our team were given to each person in the audience. A toffee was also given as a compliment. We made sure feedback about the program was taken from some of the villagers. They expressed their appreciation and encouragement. Some of them liked the skit while others liked the demonstrations.

This program helped us to create better rapport with the villagers. We hope to continue building uplifting and healthy relationships with them in the coming days.