Workshop toolkit

WHO
World No Tobacco Day 2020

Create-your-own World No Tobacco Day workshop

World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) 2020 aims to protect children and adolescents from industry manipulation and prevent them from nicotine and tobacco use. This campaign toolkit includes various activities that can be implemented by teachers in the classroom setting – whether virtual or in person - or by parents at home. These activities will serve to expose tobacco and related industry tactics to hook youth on nicotine and tobacco products and empower youth to refuse industry manipulation and join the tobacco-free generation.

Challenge

Adolescents are more likely to initiate tobacco use if they lack the awareness of tobacco and related industry tactics deliberately employed to hook them on nicotine and tobacco products and if they lack the skills to say no to nicotine and tobacco. Adolescents may try some form of tobacco or nicotine products when offered as a result of direct peer pressure, influenced by advertising, promotion and sponsorship, or simply as a result of not being equipped with the knowledge or skills to refuse it.

Objective

Give our target audience (boys and girls aged 13-17) the opportunity to expose industry tactics observed in their community, practice the act of refusing tobacco products, shisha or e-cigarettes in a safe environment using an entertaining medium, and develop advocacy plans for rejecting industry manipulation and creating a tobacco-free generation.

Approach

Workshop facilitators (e.g. teachers, parents) are encouraged to read the WNTD 2020 Q&A and WHO tobacco fact sheet prior to designing their WNTD workshop. Facilitators are encouraged to ‘Set the Scene’ for the workshop using the WNTD video and MythBuster quiz, and then to tailor the workshop using select activities from ‘Exposing Industry Tactics’ and ‘Empowering Youth to Reject Industry Manipulation’, based on preference. Once the activities of choice have been completed, take this opportunity to encourage the target audience to become youth tobacco control advocates and share examples of groups in your region working to create a tobacco-free generation!

1 - Setting the scene

5 minutes

Introduction to World No Tobacco Day theme

Virtual adaptation: Can be watched jointly using video conference software or watched in advance of the virtual class (homework assignment).

10 minutes

MythBuster quiz

To engage your students, use a polling system. Read out the question and then have students put their heads down. Read out the response options and have them raise their hand to vote. Tally up the votes and bust the myths!

Virtual adaptation: Online voting tool (e.g. Slido) can be used for MythBuster activity.

2. Exposing industry tactics

45 minutes

Tobacco industry tactics in my community

Homework assignment prior to lesson: familiarize students with industry tactics by referring sharing copies of the WNTD Q&A or referring them to the campaign materials available online. Then, invite students to take pictures of different industry tactics they observe in their community. These tactics may be observed outdoors, around their schools (billboards, point-of-sale advertising, etc.) or at home (in movies and television, online, etc.).

The tactics can also be split into local tactics (billboards, point-of-sale advertising, free products, etc.) and population-level tactics (social media advertising, product placement in movies and television, promotion through influencers, etc.)

Ask the students to share different industry tactics they’ve seen in their community. Have them categorize these different tactics under ‘advertising’, ‘promotion’, ‘sponsorship’ and ‘other marketing tactics’. The WNTD Q&A will help distinguish between these different tactic types.

Close the activity by asking students to work in groups and create advocacy materials (slogans, flyers, etc.) to expose these tactics. These materials can then be displayed around the classroom or in the school corridors.

Virtual adaptation: Could be done on video conferencing platform or on a digital classroom discussion board.

45 minutes

How to sell death

Split the class in two – ask each group to put themselves in the mind of the tobacco industry
Task the two groups to come up with different “tactics” to sell their tobacco products, keeping in mind that the product they are trying to sell will inevitably kill half of its users.
Students can refer back to the WNTD MythBuster quiz, which should provide them with some inspiration.
The two groups will take turns presenting their devious plans to hook children and adolescents on tobacco.
Once both groups have presented, ask students to reflect on how it made them feel to market product known to be deadly.
Ask the students to break back into two groups and to fill out the statement “The tobacco industry is… #SpeakOut #TobaccoExposed” and invite them to share these statements on social media and tag @WHO.

3. Empowering youth to reject industry manipulation

30 minutes

Roleplay

Instruct students to draw a wheel with 8 equal pie pieces on a blank piece of paper
Allow students 3-5 minutes to fill out half of the wheel with strategies/ways to ‘say no’ or refuse any tobacco product, shisha or e-cigarette
For 5-10 minutes, students can walk around the classroom and ask other students for additional strategies to complete their wheel
Reconvene the class. Students are now invited to come up and play the role of the ‘persuader’ and the ‘refuser’. Suggestions from other audience members are taken to help the refuser successfully refuse tobacco products, shisha or e-cigarettes. The aim is to get the class cheering for their peer, who is forcefully refusing a tobacco product, shisha or e-cigarette.

Virtual adaptation: The wheel could be assigned as homework – students could be encouraged to reach out to their classmates via email or phone to fill out the wheel prior to class session. Role play activity could be carried out on video conferencing platform.

Source: GoodBusiness

Source: https://med.stanford.edu/tobaccopreventiontoolkit/Smokeless.html

15 minutes

Saying “no” to nicotine and tobacco products

Categorize different strategies to refuse the pressures to use tobacco, shisha or e-cigarettes and have the class contribute a few refusal statements. Students will then have a variety of statements to choose from should they encounter pressure to use tobacco, shisha or e-cigarettes in the future.

Virtual adaptation: Could be done on video conferencing platform or on a digital classroom discussion board.

Source: https://www.peelregion.ca/health/tobacco/toolkit/lessons/sayingno-instruc.htm

4. Join the tobacco-free generation

Group activity

Youth groups around the globe are working hard to expose tobacco industry tactics and advocate for effective tobacco control measures to protect their communities. Invite students to work in groups to research advocacy work being done by local groups and ask them to come up with a plan to support these groups or to create their own.

Each group can present their advocacy plan to the class and get feedback from their peers and teachers. The class can vote, and a certificate can be awarded to the best advocacy plan! (Note: this could also be done creatively in the context of theater or music classes, where students are invited to write plays or songs to expose industry tactics and advocate for a tobacco-free generation and perform.)