Celebrating World No Tobacco Day

Tips for celebrating World No Tobacco Day

If you're holding an event or activity to highlight World No Tobacco Day on May 31, here are some ideas to help you make sure people in your community know about it.

•  Use this year's WHO theme.
  Make sure you put the Quitline number 13 7848 (13 QUIT) and website (www.quit.org.au) on information you’re sending out about World No Tobacco Day.
• Quit has a wide range of resources you can use, such as posters, cards and brochures. Contact Quit on (03) 9663 7777 for an order form. Most resources are available free to organisations and groups in Victoria.
• Put a World No Tobacco Day poster in your reception area or on a bulletin board where everyone can see it.
•  If you produce a newsletter, make sure you include information about your World No Tobacco Day event in it. Make up your own article or use the sample article provided in this kit.
•  Send information about your event/activity to local community organisations such as the library, local shops, schools, university or TAFE, and community centres for their noticeboard.
• Why not try a mail out? Think about who you are trying to target, and work with other organisations to see if you can include information about your event/activity in their mail outs or newsletters. Send details to local politicians and other key community leaders and invite them to come along.
• Distribute flyers with details about your event around your community – shops, libraries, schools and community centres are great places to leave them.
• Make sure you have information about your World No Tobacco Day event/activity on your website. If you don’t have a website, see if your local council website has a list of forthcoming events. If you have a website you could include a link to the Quit website www.quit.org.au.
• You could also include details about your event in your outgoing emails/mail. Ask your staff to add a message to their auto signature like 'World No Tobacco Day, May 31 – Call Quitline 13 7848 (13 QUIT)'.
• Get your local newspaper and radio station involved – use the sample media diary note in this kit and add in your own details. Then send the information to your local newspaper and radio station. See if the radio station is interested in interviewing someone from your organisation.
• Another angle for your local paper is to highlight the impact smoking has in your local area. The Tobacco Tragedy lists every local government area in Victoria, and the number of deaths caused by smoking.
• Contact your local doctor or Community Health Centre and see if they would like to make some comments about people quitting smoking, or about this year’s World No Tobacco Day theme in the local paper.

Useful websites

http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/ - this is the World Health Organisation’s site about World No Tobacco day. Here you can find information about the history of World No Tobacco Day, and details about themes since the very first World No Tobacco Day in 1987.

www.quitnow.info.au - this is the site of the National Tobacco Campaign’s 'Every Cigarette is Doing You Damage’ campaign. Here you can find information about the television advertisements in this campaign, and information about the health effects of smoking.