Two youth groups taking part in anti-smoking awards

TWO youth clubs from Wexford are calling on their local communities for support ahead of the Irish Cancer Society’s national X-HALE Youth Awards in July.

FDYS Enniscorthy and Youth Train Wexford CTC are asking people to log on to cancer.ie/xhale2018 and watch their short films about being ‘smoke free’. The film with the most views between now and July 4 will win the public vote and a national award as part of the X-HALE Short Film Competition 2018.

The project from the FDYS is an illustrative film that shows the benefits of quitting smoking while the video from Youth Train Wexford tells how when a mum dies from a tobacco related disease, it is two girls’ mission to stop the same thing happening to their brother.

X-HALE is an initiative of the Irish Cancer Society that supports young people to tackle smoking in their communities and raise awareness about the dangers of smoking among their peers.

The X-HALE Youth Awards national showcase event in the Helix, Dublin on July 5 will be the finale of months of hard work by the youth groups. In addition to promoting their films online, they will also be running campaigns to drum up local support by putting up posters, organising screenings of their films and taking part in radio interviews.

This is the eighth year of the X-HALE Youth Awards. 43 youth groups from around the country are taking part in 2018. This year participating groups also had the opportunity to have their say on how young people can become more involved in making the tobacco free generation a reality. A number of groups attended a workshop and the Tobacco Free Ireland Partners’ Conference on World No Tobacco Day.

To watch the entries visit www.cancer.ie/xhale.