| Summary: | Background and challenges to implementation
“Katthapahuwa” is a village with 1341
population locates in Kurunegala district.
Among the social issues, cigarette consumption was high; at baseline
server reveled that ¾ (341) of adult male consume cigarettes. There were 21
cigarette vendors scatted all over the village. Nearly 1550 cigarettes were
sold per day its value was USD 504.16.
Intervention or response
Interventions started in late March 2016, with
developing a youth club at the village in collaboration with Sanasa Rural
Development Bank. ADIC had trained 16 village
youth leaders to overcome cigarette issue and they had identified one of the strategy
was to reduce the cigarette availability at the village.
Firstly, youth leaders met the vendors'
association (VA) and emphasized regarding how Tobacco Company cheated vendors for
small profit and explained that how much money they have stolen from our
village. Future educated VA on their children also will be trapped by the tobacco
industry.
The main argument was made by the VA that if
vendors stop selling cigarette, selling of other goods may reduce because customers move to other shops. We explained them that majority of the customers come not for cigarette but Tobacco
Company taught you that business runs lost
if not sell cigarettes.
Finally the VA decided to stop sell cigarettes.
Vendors needed one month period because they already purchased cigarettes.
Mid Jun of 2016, all vendors stopped cigarette
selling totally. The youth team organized an event to appreciate service of vendors.
Interactions continually maintain with vendors by the youth group today too.
Results and lessons learnt
21 vendors totally stopped cigarette selling,
nearly USD 15124.92 money served for month. End year server reveled that significantly
decreasing of cigarette use by 43% (147) and 13
persons quitted use.
Conclusions and key recommendations
The decline of cigarette consumption in a
village can have a big effect on the stop sale of cigarettes.
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