Art of being smokefree

BY JESSIE COLQUHOUN

Give us our language, dance, songs, beliefs - but not cigarettes.

That's the theme of 13-year-old Sarah Colcord's artwork.

The Weymouth Intermediate student has won first place in the Keeping Kids Smokefree art competition.

Her artwork is now being displayed on the back of two buses for three months.

"It's pretty great that my art is getting out there for people to see," she says.

The picture took her a few hours to draw and includes symbols representing her Christian beliefs, Maori and Samoan heritage and south Auckland's music and dance culture.

Sarah says her art has a strong message for all adults - don't give cigarettes to your children.

"Smoking shouldn't be part of south Auckland kids' lives."

She was also the winner of a similar smokefree competition last year and her Happy New Year artwork was made into greeting cards.

Keeping Kids Smokefree is a three-year project of the Auckland University school of social and community health and is based in four south Auckland schools.

Team member Angelik
Singh says the project is investigating if teenagers are more likely to smoke if their parents do. It aims to research successful strategies to get kids to stop their parents smoking.

Papatoetoe Intermediate and Kedgley Intermediate are control schools where no change has been made. Weymouth Intermediate and Manurewa Intermediate have intervention programmes.

Children from intervention schools are encouraged to help adults stop smoking.

Students and their families get prizes such as computers for sponsoring adults to quit.

The research team is now collecting data to see if there is a difference between the control and intervention schools and expects the results to be available in a year.

- © Fairfax NZ News