Dear Delegates,
I am Ajith N, working as Manager-Research and Development in a teaching medical institution in Kerala, India.
Regarding the theme ‘Ban on tobacco advertisement and promotion’, I think, we tobacco control activists have to vigilant about the newer strategies of the tobacco industry. Now instead of big national level marketing tactics, they are concentrating on small regional level programmes. They are sponsoring cultural/ political events and are very keen to ensure the presence of local politicians and other influential figures on the same platform. The tobacco industry is supplying large display boards to rural shop vendors, depicting the brand names on it and no warning boards are displayed on the shops regarding the prohibition of sales to minors.
The need of the hour is to initiate local level advocacy programs. After implementing the Panchayath Raj Administrative System in India, the Local Self Government Institutions (LSGI) exercise considerable authority in matters of grass root level public health issues. However, our experience with these local leaders indicates that they are surprisingly unaware of the dimensions of economic, social and health consequences of tobacco use. Their active involvement in implementation of the provisions of National Tobacco Control Law will help considerably in promoting newly initiated tobacco control measures by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
My appeal to the conference delegates who are representing various States of India is summarized below:
- Take the Mumbai conference as a platform for coordinated action.
- Establish an informal network of tobacco control activists within the State.
- Plan an advocacy programme on law enforcement targeting grass root level politicians and other stakeholders like local NGO personnel, school teachers, police officials, community workers, leaders of shop-vendor associations etc..
- Prepare a project proposal on advocacy as per the situation prevail in the respective States.
- But, the PRIMARY OBJECTIVES of the proposal has to be same for all the projects.
- For example; as a representative of the State of Kerala, my project title may be (tentative) “An advocacy programme for the enforcement of national tobacco control legislation at grass root level through local self government institutions in Kerala, India.” And the objectives may be set as;
a) To get commitment from the people’s representatives of Local Self Government Institutions in enforcing the provisions of national tobacco control law.
b) To develop a written protocol for local level tobacco control law enforcement.
c) To identify the enforcement officers of that local area.
d) To sensitize the people’s representatives about the diverse promotional tactics employed by the tobacco industry.
e) To create a supportive environment at the grass root level towards the law enforcement.
- We will discuss together and fine tune the project proposal during the conference. (there may be a scope of 25 projects from various States)
- In each step, the involvement of youth has to be ensured.
- The end goal is a nation wide advocacy campaign of the same nature, immediately after the World Conference.
- Funding: “If there is a will there is a way!!!!!!!”
If idea finds worth, please respond to ajithndd@gmail.com
Looking forward to meeting you all,
Warm regards,
Ajith N
Manager-Research & Development
Sree Gokulam Medical College & Research Foundation
M C Road, Venjaramoodu, Trivandrum-695 607, Kerala, India
Mobile: 09895425130/ 09495153653
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February 27th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
It is true that the youth can determine the future of the country and now that we have got this excellent platform to do so, I, as a student of 11th class, feel that I have finally got some way of expressing myself and contributing towards bringing a change.
You have suggested an amazing solution and we’ll all surely give it our best to ban tobacco advertisement and promotion.
February 28th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Dear Ajith,
Good intiative. I totaly agree with you that there is a need to actually define and limit our efforts to a state or even a province level. Most of the times, it is ony at the national level that advocacy efforts (regarding implementation of Laws) are somewhat visible. In fact many NGOs involved in such advocacy have limited capacity to make any major impact at national level. Their efforts if focussed at state’province level and if a network of org. (already existant in some of the Indian states) can be formed, it is the right way ahead.
During my involvement in training school teachers, I felt that most of them were not aware of the scale of tobacco harm and not at all about tectics of industry. It is at this level that we need to focus our efforts and then the tobacco control moement will get embedded rather remaining only withing ambits of proactive organisations.