Guest Commentary: Middle schooler shares positive influence of anti-tobacco summit
Jada-Lynn Bland is a Talley Middle School student and a member of Kick Butts Generation (KBG).
My name is Jada-Lynn Bland, and I attend Talley Middle School. I am in a mentoring program called the Guided Approach to Positivity Youth Mentoring Initiative (GAP). As a community group, the other mentees in GAP and I attended the Kick Butts Generation Youth Summit on tobacco at the University of Delaware. We met students that are also in Kick Butts Generation from other schools and community groups across the state. It was fun to meet other kids that share the same interest in tobacco prevention and know that we are all trying to have influence in our schools and community.
At the summit, I attended a few workshops that taught me a lot about the tobacco industry. I was very surprised about how long tobacco has been around and the different forms of advertising that were used to target different ethnic groups. Depending on your racial background, you might only smoke certain types of cigarettes, such as menthol, as tobacco companies targeted their marketing to ethnic groups, especially Black Americans. Sports teams were a big use of advertisement, as well, to tobacco smokers. For example, if you saw a basketball or football player in a cigarette commercial, it looked cool, so that might encourage you to smoke or use that brand that was advertised.
I learned about using my voice as a positive way to influence my peers when it comes to not smoking and making the right decisions. I know that social media is a powerful tool and helps me to gain a bigger audience and makes my influence more impactful, all while I am having fun. Since the tobacco companies use media to make money, we students can also use the media to make our world safe and healthier without tobacco.
In one workshop, we talked about guerilla activism and how it is used to gain attention. Activists use it to bring awareness in a way that is not used to being seen, such as flash mobs or protests. It is not meant to be used in a negative way but to gain the attention of the media and possibly stakeholders. When thinking of using this as a way to create change, it is important to map out a plan that answers who is the target audience, the goal we want to accomplish, a clear message and the location of where it takes place.
The last workshop was on public speaking and why we should always be confident in what we talk about. If we are not well educated on the information that we are presenting when we are in front of an audience or our peers, the information will not be received and possibly not taken seriously. The speaker separated us all into groups and gave us topics to present. We all took part in presenting in front of the whole auditorium as one unit. It helped us overcome some of the fears of being on a stage. We focused on our posture, eye contact, content and speaking clearly.
This was my first time ever attending something like this, and I had so much fun, while learning about something that it is a huge problem, even with kids around my age, and deadly in some cases. But this summit made me excited about all the great things that I want to do in my community to help fight the use of tobacco.
