Who Are We?
TEENS AGAINST TOBACCO consists of 7 anti-tobacco leaders from Dorchester and Mattapan. The senior peer leaders are Donna-Lee Destouche 11th grader at Boston Latin School, John Garris 11th grader at East Boston High School, and Cynthia Loesch 11th grader at Boston Latin Academy. The junior peer leaders are Brandon Burton 9th grader at Hyde Park High School, Ashley Jackson 10th grader at Lexington High School, and Jonathan Lewis 9th grader at Boston Latin Academy.
What Have We Done?
We have had many accomplishments in the past so we'll name a few for you.
Back in 1998 after a six month campaign of writing to the editor and publisher of The Boston Globe, starting a petition of about 2000 signatures and finally holding a press conference at the Codman Square Health Center. TEENS AGAINST TOBACCO got The Boston Globe to pull all of their tobacco ads and break a $1,000,000 contract with Parliament.
We also surveyed over 200 stores in Dorchester to make sure they were smoke-free. We built relationships with the merchants and convinced the stores that were not smoke free to become smoke-free. Also because of these relationships, they allowed us to hang up our anti-tobacco advertisements that we created to counter the many tobacco advertisements in the stores.
We also do Healthy Home and Family Contracts. We get people to sign a contract to make sure they keep their homes smoke-free, we then check up on them to make sure they're are abiding by the contracts. We also supply them with information on tobacco use if requested. We have about 900 Healthy Home and Family Contracts!!!!
Teens Against Tobacco w/ Healthy Families