Alex learners from Bovet and Zenzeleni primary schools have joined forces with their counterparts across the country to wage a war in a bid to beat the scourge of child smokers.
The incidence of child smokers is said to be rife in Alexandra and according to community builder and Alex arts creative Refilwe Pieterse, there is a desperate need to try and curb this habit before it spirals out of control.
Pieterse has been working closely with some of the child smokers whom she has managed to convince to quit the habit, but they are said to be under extreme peer pressure.
“They [peers] keep urging them to come back and even go to the extent of calling them cowards who think they are now better off than them after managing to beat the habit. I keep urging them to never mind but remain determined and resolute in quitting the habit before they are hooked to a point of no return,” she told Alex News.
Her Refilwe Pieterse Foundation has partnered with the Alex Men’s Forum, Slow Food and SA Humanitarian to launch a Storytellers Hub on March 26, which, among other activities, hopes to take the children away from smoking as she believes this will snowball into something much bigger such as drug abuse.
Children that come to the Storytellers Hub will also be involved in vegetable gardens and on the day of the launch, which will also mark Alexandra’s 110 years, the children will be planting various vegetables and trees to mark the township’s birthday.
Learners from the two schools will join hundreds of others that will be hard at work, creating striking mural artworks on winning by not smoking through a national tobacco education initiative that forms part of the National Department of Health ‘Sibo Manqoba!’ [we are winners] campaign.
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