A Donegal Youthreach centre is calling on its local community for support ahead of the Irish Cancer Society’s national X-HALE Youth Awards 2018 in July.
Letterkenny Youthreach is asking people to log on to cancer.ie/xhale2018 and watch its short film about being ‘smoke free’. In the video, three inspirational young adults share the life-changing benefits they experienced after quitting cigarettes.
The film with the most views between now and 4 July will win the public vote and a national award as part of the X-HALE Short Film Competition 2018.
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 5 July 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. Forty three 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 (31 May).
Sarah Chadwick, Cancer Prevention Officer at the Irish Cancer Society said, “We are so proud of everything that the young people from Donegal have achieved. They have educated themselves about smoking, learned new skills and worked together to create films that will inform and inspire young people across Ireland and beyond. They are leading the way in the movement towards a tobacco free Ireland and improving the health of their local communities. We commend their commitment to establishing Ireland’s first smoke free generation and are asking the public to show their support by watching and sharing the X-HALE 2018 playlist.”
For further information about X-HALE and to watch the entries visit www.cancer.ie/xhale. Follow www.facebook.com/
Youthreach is co-funded by the Irish Government, the European Social Fund and the Youth Employment Initiative as part of the ESF Programme for Employability, Inclusion and Learning (PEIL) 2014-2020.
