A just six-year-old Danish boy delivers a whopper of a speech in a touching and different film, which launches the ambition for his generation to be the first smoke-free generation. There is just one problem: the grown-ups!
For humans to smoke is not a law of nature. If we want to, of course we can choose not to pass on smoking to our kids and grandkids.
This is the reasoning behind Smoke-Free Future, a partnership between organizations, politicians and people of Denmark to create the first smoke-free generation.
The new method takes aim at the fact that 40 children and youth in Denmark start smoking every day, and that Denmark has fallen behind on minimizing its number of young smokers.
The ambition is that no kids should be smoking in 2030, and even though 85 % of the Danes share that ambition, nothing is being done.
This new campaign will turn attitudes into actions.
– When such a frighteningly high number of youths start smoking, it is not due to lack of information. Everyone knows that smoking is unhealthy. The cause is a lack of action. And we actually have the opportunity to create the first smoke-free generation in Denmark, if we want to. Quitting smoking can be tough, so let’s band up and make it hard to start smoking, says Leif Vestergaard, CEO of The Danish Cancer Society (Kræftens Bekæmpelse), who started the partnership together with the charitable foundation TrygFonden.
The long haul
Smoke-Free Future is about forming alliances, and already before the official launch, a long list of Danish municipalities, schools, store chains, health organizations and many others have signed up as partners.
– If we want to make sure that today’s little kids do not grow up to be tomorrow’s smokers, the time to act is now. If we show a great and united front of people, who want the same thing and go down new paths, then it’s definitely possible to create a smoke-free generation, says Gurli Martinussen, CEO of TrygFonden.
In the touching film released to launch the initiative, a little boy takes the stage, since the grown-ups don’t act to create a smoke-free future for him and his baby sister.
