The Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety (TTCS), in part­ner­ship with the Sco­tia­bank Foun­da­tion, is ex­pand­ing its an­ti-smok­ing and an­ti-va­p­ing cam­paign to sec­ondary schools across To­ba­go, strength­en­ing a long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to youth health ed­u­ca­tion.

Build­ing on the suc­cess of sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives con­duct­ed through­out Trinidad, the pro­gramme brings in­ter­ac­tive lec­tures, pre­sen­ta­tions and dis­cus­sions di­rect­ly to high school stu­dents, equip­ping them with the knowl­edge need­ed to make in­formed choic­es about their health. The ses­sions fo­cus on the re­al—and of­ten un­der­es­ti­mat­ed—dan­gers of smok­ing and va­p­ing, while en­cour­ag­ing open di­a­logue among stu­dents, teach­ers and school com­mu­ni­ties.

For sev­er­al years, Sco­tia­bank’s part­ner­ship with TTCS has played a lead­ing role in ad­vanc­ing this ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign. Through this col­lab­o­ra­tion, thou­sands of stu­dents across T&T have been reached with cred­i­ble, ev­i­dence-based in­for­ma­tion about the harm­ful ef­fects of to­bac­co and emerg­ing va­p­ing prod­ucts.

The youth ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tive has suc­cess­ful­ly en­gaged stu­dents na­tion­wide through in­ter­ac­tive school lec­tures and dis­cus­sions, com­ple­ment­ed by a dy­nam­ic so­cial me­dia cam­paign de­signed to com­mu­ni­cate the re­al dan­gers of smok­ing and va­p­ing. As in pre­vi­ous years, the cam­paign con­tin­ues to spark im­por­tant con­ver­sa­tions among stu­dents, ed­u­ca­tors and par­ents.

Schools have in­creas­ing­ly reached out di­rect­ly to the TTCS re­quest­ing these ses­sions—clear ev­i­dence that the mes­sage is res­onat­ing and that de­mand for cred­i­ble health ed­u­ca­tion is grow­ing. Stu­dents’ re­spons­es dur­ing the ses­sions have been pos­i­tive and high­ly en­gag­ing, with many ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in dis­cus­sions and ask­ing ques­tions about the long-term health im­pli­ca­tions of smok­ing and va­p­ing.

The cam­paign’s dig­i­tal strat­e­gy has fur­ther am­pli­fied its reach. Com­pelling on­line con­tent al­lows the ini­tia­tive to con­nect with young au­di­ences where they are most ac­tive, re­in­forc­ing an­ti-smok­ing and an­ti-va­p­ing mes­sag­ing while en­cour­ag­ing in­formed de­ci­sion-mak­ing and youth ad­vo­ca­cy.

Through its sus­tained sup­port, Sco­tia­bank con­tin­ues to demon­strate strong cor­po­rate lead­er­ship in pro­mot­ing health­i­er com­mu­ni­ties and em­pow­er­ing young peo­ple with the knowl­edge need­ed to make pos­i­tive lifestyle choic­es.

The TTCS re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing with part­ners, ed­u­ca­tors and com­mu­ni­ties to strength­en pre­ven­tion ini­tia­tives and re­duce the fu­ture bur­den of can­cer and oth­er to­bac­co-re­lat­ed dis­eases.