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Hi, I’m Sarah Jameel. I’m 18 years old and I’m a global changemaker from Sri Lanka.
And most importantly I’m a health entrepreneur.
from a very early age I started pediatric health camps.
We integrated health care into rural communities in urban Sri Lanka,
mainly Colombo,
providing them with medical equipment needed and medicines needed.
But now I realize that throughout looking at that aspect of society,
there was another aspect of society that meant a lot to me and this was teenagers.
Just take a minute, a moment to understand what it is like for a group of children
to be given cigarettes free of charge from tobacco companies.
Well, this is not just imagination. This is indeed the reality
even in developing countries
and this is indeed the reality in the community in which I come from.
So what do we do as youth? We’ve come up with the most innovative brand
and the most innovative anti-smoking campaign that has hit this planet,
and that is Kick the Butt. What does Kick the Butt do?
It aims at changing the mindsets of teenage smokers by using social media
and also using the ability to change mindsets via fashion.
Looking at the statistics, 5.4 million tobacco related deaths around the world worldwide.
And in Sri Lanka there are 27,000 death in regard to smoking.
Sri Lanka has the highest amount of oral cancer in the world
which is 40 percent of all cancers.
Now, one of my friends was indeed introduced to smoking
when he was 12 years old and this, this is just one scenario.
This is just one case in which an individual has been forced to smoking
and this, therefore, this campaign aims at targeting those individuals,
those individuals whose voice cannot be heard.
Now, why is Kick the Butt different?
Kick the Butt does not tell a teenager, don’t smoke coz you’re gonna get lung cancer.
Because, as teenagers, we’re not gonna listen to that.
We’re just gonna say, whatever, I’m not going to live..
I am going to live until I’m 50 and I’m not gonna get lung cancer.
So, therefore, this is the difference in Kick the Butt.
Now, how do we do this? We use campaigning
and the campaigning we use is fashion.
On the screen you’d see special logos like, I’d rather smooch than smoke.
These are the innovative methods.
These are the logos and slogans that teenagers can connect to.
Others such as I’ve got sexy lips coz I don’t smoke.
See, these are the things that Kick the Butt has been working on
and this is creating positive change.
Now, we use social media such as Facebook and blog
to bring these measures out to the world.
We have Kick the Butt stories
where teenagers can come and write their Kick the Butt stories,
how they were able to quit or how they were not able to quit
and how we could help them to quit.
Now, what can corporations do for us,
especially, being at Davos where you have so much... and opportunities?
We know how teenagers love technology. They love their iPods.
Therefore, create non-smoking iPhones, create iPods that identify them
identify teenagers as non-smokers
and create them saying that they’re proud to be non-smokers.
Other youth brand such as Coca-Cola, well, not restricting it to Pepsi, of course,
and many other brands such fashion brands such Levis
where you can even have a Kick the Butt logo at the back of your jeans,
and other teen oriented brands.
Now, this is the power of providing this message via fashion.
We know how important it is of endurance and fitness for athletes.
We have seen two campaigns used by Nike and by Adidas
which says that impossible is nothing. Just do it.
These are the campaigns that we need and what can they do further?
They should be able to bring out innovative solutions
to have non-smoking brand ambassadors.
Now, on the more government side, what can governments around the world do?
They can provide tax concessions
to businesses that do not sell cigarette products to teenagers
and this is because we are focusing in on this area now of teenagers.
So, therefore, what will we create?
We will not create a cigarette bed like what you see in the picture.
We will create a sustainable community. We will create a healthier generation
and this healthier generation will not burden their governments with health care costs
and will not burden themselves with the cardiovascular diseases and with lung cancer
and many other cancers that come hand in hand.
So what will we create at the end of the day? A sustainable economy.
And what how is this sustainable economy created?
With a sustainable workforce, of course.
A teen generation that grows up and there’s...
and is so capable of doing their work to their maximum capability
while it’s being hailed the human beings.
This is the idea of Kick the Butt and this is why you need to kick the butt right now.