Halton Region celebrates Crave achievements

At an informal event held recently at Halton Region, staff took the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of Crave. Crave is a group of youth employed by Halton Region’s Health Department, through program funding under the province’s Smoke-Free Ontario Strategy. Crave’s mission is to educate youth about the tobacco industry.

“Our Peer Leaders have been involved in everything from advocating for smoke-free sport events, to warning women about the dangers of smoking while pregnant,” said Gary Carr, Halton Regional Chair. “The Crave program has been particularly effective in encouraging our youth to take action. I would like to thank the Crave team for its hard work and creativity.”

Crave was launched in 2005 to support youth leadership development, prevent children and youth from starting and becoming addicted to tobacco products, and to advocate for the elimination of involuntary exposure to second-hand smoke. The Region employed 20 youth peer leaders each year over the past three years.

The event was held to both celebrate the program’s success and signal its conclusion. The Ministry of Health Promotion recently announced funding adjustments within the Smoke Free Ontario program. This includes discontinuing funding for the Crave youth action alliance program as of August 31, 2009..

According to Dr. Bob Nosal, Halton Region’s Medical Officer of Health, “Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death and disability in Canada today. Evidence shows that to prevent and reduce tobacco use by young people, strategies aimed at engaging youth in youth-led tobacco prevention initiatives and developing youth assets are effective. Crave has been very successful in keeping this issue in the spotlight and planting the seeds of change.”

Among the group’s accomplishments::

• A peer leader presentation to Halton’s Health and Social Services Committee in 2007 started what would become a move to enact by-laws to be in place shortly at both the municipal and regional level, banning smoking within nine meters of government buildings.
• Peers leader advocacy efforts also played a role in legislation banning smoking in cars carrying young passengers and pending legislation around the sale of flavoured tobacco.
• The group used a variety of innovative tactics to raise awareness, including everything from setting up mock tombstones at three high schools, each displaying a country’s daily death toll due to tobacco industry products, to developing a website and Facebook page that had close to 500 followers.

For more information, visit www.cravethetruth.ca

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