The Asian American Youth Council of Dayton is a teen leadership program focused on anti tobacco education and activism. High school students are required to lead, teach, problem solve and generate ideas that deal with tobacco education and other concerns that affect the Asian community.
Presentations:
Developed original Anti Tobacco Power Point Presentations that were specific to each intern’s native country. Given in Taiwan, India and US.
Youth Anti Tobacco Presentations given at two Chinese Schools, the Hindi School, the Korean Methodist Church Youth Group, upper elementary students at the Washington Township (Ohio) Recreation Center, the AAYAT Summit and to Indian youth at Laser Quest.
Adult presentations were given to the Filipino Society and parents.
Anti tobacco presentation given at a Chinese Camp.
Dayton youth participated in a youth panel at the National Conference on Tobacco or Health meeting.
Restaurant Related Events:
Developed a list of smoke free restaurants in 2006 and distributed list before the state went smoke free.
Conducted surveys at Amar India and China Dynasty regarding becoming smoke free in restaurants
Ice cream social at Graeter’s—a bell was rung every 8 seconds signifying a person died from tobacco related causes and ice cream cone coupons were given in exchange for a completed survey.
‘Thank you for going smoke free’ events were held at BD’s Mongolian Grill, Boston Market, Doubleday’s, Bravo’s, China Kitchen, Planet Smoothie and Subbie’s.
Special Projects created and done only by Dayton AAYAT
Anti tobacco fashion show—anti tobacco facts were worked into the commentary, written on tags that were tied to the bottom of glasses, written in fortune cookies, and a Power Point presentation was given in a ‘Trivia’ format. Over 300 attended. Event received wide publicity.
Presentations created that were adapted to interns’ specific home countries. Two interns went back to their homelands and gave their presentations to youth.
Created a smoke free restaurant ‘menu’ list of Miami Valley restaurants and widely distributed it
College scholarship offered for two years in honor of Kathleen Nguyen
The Great Race picnic—11 ‘stations’ were created that consisted of tasks that teams had to complete in order to win the race. This was combined with a picnic.
Kick Butts Day at Centerville High School and WSU for six successive years
Smokescreeners movie activity
‘When Smokers Don’t Agree’ kit that was distributed to businesses
Quarterly Dayton AAYAT newsletter
Compliance checks were conducted in Greene County, Ohio
Created the video, “Ten Top Tobacco Facts”
Anti Tobacco Activity Book—current project
Publish quarterly newsletter
Display Tables
Wright State University Asian Festival
The Chinese Festival
The University of Dayton Fashion Show
India Republic Day
The Asian Cultural Festival
Chinese New Year’s Celebration
Vietnamese Tet celebration
AAYAT Fashion Show
Kick Butts Day interactive table
Legislative Action
Two interns were selected to go before the state of Ohio’s finance committee to persuade them not to commandeer tobacco funds
Three youth spoke in front of the Centerville City Council advocating a smoke free city (of Centerville)
One youth spoke in front of the Kettering City Council encouraging the city to become smoke free
Jolie Yang contacted the office of Mike Turner when she won the International YAYA award
Utsav Goel spoke with Sherrod Brown in Washington D.C.
Our quarterly newsletter was mailed to all state and national Ohio legislators
Five literature drops were carried out on behalf of Smoke Free Ohio
Numerous youth gathered names for the Smoke Free Ohio petitions
Publicity
A major, front page article in the Life section of the Dayton Daily News was devoted to the Tobacco Fashion Show.
Jolie Yang, Annie Lee and Frances Yen were all written about in the local Centerville Bellbrook Times.
Interns Kanchen Loganathan, Jolie Yang and others were interviewed by several TV crews when the group was holding signs in front of the Centerville City Hall.
Intern Mira Trivedi was interviewed for the channel 22 News during our final literature drop.
Utsav Goel, Jolie Yang and Caroline Win’s letters to the editor were published in the DDN and the Centerville Bellbrook Times.
Utsav Goel was interviewed several times by local TV stations when he was in the 8th grade regarding his opinions about smoking in public places.
Awards
Jolie Yang selected the International Youth Advocate of the Year, 2007, by Tobacco Free Kids
Asian American Youth Against Tobacco won the Group Advocate of the Year Award in 2004 by Tobacco Free Kids