Activity 4 that deals with information about passive smoking is gonna be conducted in our selected schools on Friday ie 26/02/2010.
Best of luck to all volunteers!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Why volunteer?
When we were just getting started with the idea of Teach for Health, we thought hard about how we could tailor the entire program to benefit not just the children, but also the volunteers. To give them something that they wouldn't forget in a hurry. We believe that the volunteers gain as much from the program as the children. Their lives are touched just as much as the children's. If you want to know how, just see our volunteer experiences section.
And it's not very difficult to understand why. The joy of reaching out to and helping another person has been consistently highlighted as the most profound of joys by classical thinkers such as Buddha and Gandhi and modern ones such as Professor Morrie (in Tuesdays with Morrie. See here.) and Tony Robbins. (See his TED video here)
Presently, very few youngsters in our society are regularly engaged in community service. Not because they are unconcerned, apathetic or lazy, but because they haven't been provided an oppurtunity to experience the joy of pure, unadulterated service. They haven't ever gone back to a classroom after leaving school. And so we want to give people this chance to experience a joy that cannot be replicated in a movie theatre, a restaurant, a theme park, a holiday or with a loved one. The joy of teaching children you would have never known otherwise, and the novel experience of being a teacher and a role model.
We don't believe in looking at service as doing a favour to someone, or as an obligation of everyone who lives in a society. We simply hope that people will try teaching just like they try a new restaurant or place. And it is our firm belief that once they try it, they will be hooked.(Not least because it is an inexpensive way to have fun. Like they say, 'The best things in life are always for free.')
Nobody could have put it better than Gandhi when he said, 'I know not everyone is suited to the act of service, but if you are, there is no greater joy you could obtain on this earth.'
Also, we at NATO are committed to making this a fulfilling experience for you and will do everything to make sure you carry back more than a few memories.
And it's not very difficult to understand why. The joy of reaching out to and helping another person has been consistently highlighted as the most profound of joys by classical thinkers such as Buddha and Gandhi and modern ones such as Professor Morrie (in Tuesdays with Morrie. See here.) and Tony Robbins. (See his TED video here)
Presently, very few youngsters in our society are regularly engaged in community service. Not because they are unconcerned, apathetic or lazy, but because they haven't been provided an oppurtunity to experience the joy of pure, unadulterated service. They haven't ever gone back to a classroom after leaving school. And so we want to give people this chance to experience a joy that cannot be replicated in a movie theatre, a restaurant, a theme park, a holiday or with a loved one. The joy of teaching children you would have never known otherwise, and the novel experience of being a teacher and a role model.
We don't believe in looking at service as doing a favour to someone, or as an obligation of everyone who lives in a society. We simply hope that people will try teaching just like they try a new restaurant or place. And it is our firm belief that once they try it, they will be hooked.(Not least because it is an inexpensive way to have fun. Like they say, 'The best things in life are always for free.')
Nobody could have put it better than Gandhi when he said, 'I know not everyone is suited to the act of service, but if you are, there is no greater joy you could obtain on this earth.'
Also, we at NATO are committed to making this a fulfilling experience for you and will do everything to make sure you carry back more than a few memories.
So, does it work?
So how do we know that the money and time we are all putting in is not just a feel good exercise and is actually causing impact?
The curriculum that we are using has been tested in a group randomised trial conducted by HRIDAY. Its details can be found here The results of this trial show that in the intervention schools, the use of tobacco decreased by 15%, while in the control schools, the use of tobacco increased by 67%. Moreover, the intervention was able to significantly modify all the psychosocial risk factors associated with tobacco use.
Our program, however, differs from the HRIDAY model in a few ways.
1) Our program seeks to utilise the positive role model potential of college youth who abstain from tobacco and advocate for the same. That is why volunteers implement most of our activities, and we hypothesize that this approach will lead to even greater effectiveness of the program.
2) The HRIDAY model was a two year intervention, with seven classroom activities in each year. We plan to have classroom activities only in the first year, with reinforcement in subsequent years provided by posters, movies, talks and inter-school competitions.
Due to these differences, we are conducting our own group randomised trial with our first cohort of 1000 students. The results of this trial will only be available next year, but so far, the anecdotal reports are extremely encouraging. Some of these have been documented in a video that will be put up shortly.
Ultimately, through this format of school-based intervention we aim to modify the social acceptability of tobacco in the local community of Nagpur. Tobacco, to a large extent, is a local problem for which local solutions can be implemented successfully. In this regard, we aim to work with various stakeholders in the process, and move forward through a process of building consensus. We are therefore in talks with Nagpur Municipal Corporation, other NGOs in Nagpur (such as the Indian Medical Association (IMA)), National Medicos Organisation (NMO)and some others), colleges, eminent doctors and hospitals of the city and civil society in general.
The curriculum that we are using has been tested in a group randomised trial conducted by HRIDAY. Its details can be found here The results of this trial show that in the intervention schools, the use of tobacco decreased by 15%, while in the control schools, the use of tobacco increased by 67%. Moreover, the intervention was able to significantly modify all the psychosocial risk factors associated with tobacco use.
Our program, however, differs from the HRIDAY model in a few ways.
1) Our program seeks to utilise the positive role model potential of college youth who abstain from tobacco and advocate for the same. That is why volunteers implement most of our activities, and we hypothesize that this approach will lead to even greater effectiveness of the program.
2) The HRIDAY model was a two year intervention, with seven classroom activities in each year. We plan to have classroom activities only in the first year, with reinforcement in subsequent years provided by posters, movies, talks and inter-school competitions.
Due to these differences, we are conducting our own group randomised trial with our first cohort of 1000 students. The results of this trial will only be available next year, but so far, the anecdotal reports are extremely encouraging. Some of these have been documented in a video that will be put up shortly.
Ultimately, through this format of school-based intervention we aim to modify the social acceptability of tobacco in the local community of Nagpur. Tobacco, to a large extent, is a local problem for which local solutions can be implemented successfully. In this regard, we aim to work with various stakeholders in the process, and move forward through a process of building consensus. We are therefore in talks with Nagpur Municipal Corporation, other NGOs in Nagpur (such as the Indian Medical Association (IMA)), National Medicos Organisation (NMO)and some others), colleges, eminent doctors and hospitals of the city and civil society in general.
What do we do?
We are currently focussing on carrying out anti-tobacco education in the government schools of Nagpur city. The curriculum for this intervention has been developed by HRIDAY, a Delhi based NGO that is a leading light on tobacco control in India(1). The intervention has 4 components- 7 peer led classroom activities, 6 posters to be hung in the classrooms, a parental involvement component wherein 6 postcards are sent home to the parents and finally a peer leadership component, focussing on peer led health activism outside of the classroom, including competitions between classroom and schools. The entire intervention is usually carried out over a span of two months. An innovative aspect of the intervention is an activity format in which elected peer leaders facilitate small groups.
All these activities are conducted in grade 7. Middle school students are most vulnerable to the psycho-social risk factors associated with tobacco. Most adult tobacco users develop the habit before they turn 18, and early intervention to modify the risk factors is essential to obtain real benefit.
Reinforcement of the message in subsequent years is essential to help kids remain tobacco free. Therefore, we will implement appropriate strategies to ensure reinforcement when the first cohort of kids enter grade 8.
We ultimately aim to enhance the capacity of individual schools to implement a grade wise education curriculum so as to ensure sustainability of the program.
References-
1)http://www.hriday-shan.org
All these activities are conducted in grade 7. Middle school students are most vulnerable to the psycho-social risk factors associated with tobacco. Most adult tobacco users develop the habit before they turn 18, and early intervention to modify the risk factors is essential to obtain real benefit.
Reinforcement of the message in subsequent years is essential to help kids remain tobacco free. Therefore, we will implement appropriate strategies to ensure reinforcement when the first cohort of kids enter grade 8.
We ultimately aim to enhance the capacity of individual schools to implement a grade wise education curriculum so as to ensure sustainability of the program.
References-
1)http://www.hriday-shan.org
Why Teach for Health
The first question that needs answering is why should someone contribute to this effort- the question of how do we really know we are making a difference? But before we tackle this question, let us run through some basic facts about the tobacco problem.
Tobacco today kills nearly one million people in india, making it the number one cause of preventable deaths in the country. To put this number in perspective, Tobacco kills more people than Tuberculosis (0.37 million), AIDS (0.2 million) and Road Traffic Accidents (0.1 million) combined(1). Moreover, unlike many other diseases, the tobacco problem doesn’t seem to be improving in our country. Research has shown that more and more young people are getting hooked onto tobacco in developing countries such as India (2), even as many developed countries see a steady decline in the number of tobacco users each year due to the intensified efforts of their government and civil society. The keyword here is civil society, whose engagement is essential to change the social acceptability of tobacco and to discourage its use.
There are three primary approaches to the tobacco problem (3)- regulatory, providing cessation treatment to existing users, and to prevent new users by providing school based education programs. And this is where a program such as Teach For Health comes in.
References-
1) Park's Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine
2)http://www.hriday-shan.org/hriday/publications1.html
3)http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/surgeongeneral/ataglance.pdf
Tobacco today kills nearly one million people in india, making it the number one cause of preventable deaths in the country. To put this number in perspective, Tobacco kills more people than Tuberculosis (0.37 million), AIDS (0.2 million) and Road Traffic Accidents (0.1 million) combined(1). Moreover, unlike many other diseases, the tobacco problem doesn’t seem to be improving in our country. Research has shown that more and more young people are getting hooked onto tobacco in developing countries such as India (2), even as many developed countries see a steady decline in the number of tobacco users each year due to the intensified efforts of their government and civil society. The keyword here is civil society, whose engagement is essential to change the social acceptability of tobacco and to discourage its use.
There are three primary approaches to the tobacco problem (3)- regulatory, providing cessation treatment to existing users, and to prevent new users by providing school based education programs. And this is where a program such as Teach For Health comes in.
References-
1) Park's Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine
2)http://www.hriday-shan.org/hriday/publications1.html
3)http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/surgeongeneral/ataglance.pdf
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