ISLAMABAD: In a bid to protect schoolchildren from advertisements for tobacco based products which are uploaded on social media, a non-government organisation known as The Network announced a competition asking students to upload videos on social media about the hazards of smoking, the winners of which were announced Friday.

“We decided to involve youth in our campaign against the use of tobacco. We asked students to make videos and upload them on social media and the winners were judged according to the most Facebook likes,” head of The Network, Nadeem Iqbal told Dawn.

The tobacco industry is using social media to market their products, which is mostly seen by younger people, as they make up the majority of those using social media, he said.

“The students who took part in the competition now know a lot about the use of tobacco and they will now resist tobacco marketing on social media,” he said.

As many as 20 schools from Islamabad and Rawalpindi took part in the competition and cash prizes worth Rs40,000, Rs30,000 and Rs25,000 were also given to the first, second and third position holders respectively.

Qasim Mehmood, a 15-year old student of the ninth grade received first prize for a film he had produced on the hazards of smoking.

“In my 150 second long video, I perform the role of a smoker who suffers from health issues which are caused by smoking. Through the movie, I try to give the message that smokers do not feel like they are going to get ill at first, but their stamina starts deteriorating as soon as they start smoking,” he said.

Qasim said that with the help of another student, who has also acted in the film, he has tried to show that with time, smokers start developing health issues and start lagging behind in all fields of life.

“In the end, the protagonist understands that smoking is injurious to health and quits smoking,” he said.

“My mother is a doctor and she supported and guided me through the video, which took three days to film and edit. It was a great experience and I learnt many things about smoking with which I can now convince others, especially teenagers, to give up smoking,” Qasim added.

The winner of the second prize, Mohammad Ammad said that the video he had produced showed the comparison between a smoker and non-smoker with the video concluding that not smoking is the better option.

“It was a great opportunity to learn about the tobacco industry’s tactics to promote smoking in schools,” he said.

Mohammad Faraz, winner of the third prize, said that young people can have more fun if they do not smoke and that he will play his role in helping teenagers give up smoking.

According to the Global Youth Tobacco Survey 2014 shows that 13.3pc boys and 6.6pc of girls aged between 13 and 15 years of age are smokers, said Dr Maria Ahmed Qureshi, who organised the competition.

“Research shows that the trend for smoking is on the rise and if these trends continue, the productivity of our future generations will be reduced due to deadly, tobacco related diseases like cancers, heart diseases, respiratory diseases, damage to the nervous system and infertility, among others,” she lamented.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2016