YAH! IT’s A LIFESTYLE THAT’S GROWING WITH SINGAPORE YOUTH

Singapore, 16 December 2006 – The Youth 'Advolution' for Health (YAH) Programme enters its second year with more gusto and resolve to encourage youth to live a healthy lifestyle, by broadening its interests from smoking control to cover mental wellness, regular physical activity, healthy nutrition and STI/AIDS prevention as well for the coming year. As advocates for health, YAH members aim to revolutionise the way youth think about the importance of health.

2      Led by the YAH Executive Committee comprising vibrant youths from various junior colleges, universities and polytechnics, and supported by the Health Promotion Board, the YAH Programme provides a platform for youth to be involved in advocating, planning, revolutionising and implementing programmes to help their peers lead a healthy lifestyle.

3      In its pilot year, YAH – made up of a core group of six passionate youths, organised various events and initiatives where they advocated and rallied their peers to support a smoke-free lifestyle. The variety of activities generated very encouraging participation among the youth.

4      Now into its second year, YAH will be actively recruiting new members and broadening its agenda to cover other health issues such as mental wellness, regular physical activity, healthy nutrition and STI/AIDS prevention on top of smoking control.

5       Says YAH’s spokesperson, incoming Chairperson Miss Celeste Phua: ”We are heartened by our peers’ positive response to the YAH programme and its initiatives in the first year. Through the various initiatives, we were able to interact with more than 8,000 fellow youth to encourage them to support a smoke-free lifestyle. By moving into new health areas, we will be able to promote health more holistically. The new health areas that we will now be championing are important to youth like us as they are definitely health challenges that we face everyday.”

First Anniversary Bash

6      YAH held its first anniversary party this evening at DXO, celebrating its success over the past year. This celebration also signified a milestone in youth health advocacy in Singapore . The party also launched the brand new programme for 2007 and introduced a new Executive Committee to continue bearing the torch.

7      The themed party, "Be Free. Live Life to Its Fullest." was launched by Guest of Honour Mr. Teo Ser Luck, Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sport. About 250 youths attended the YAH first Anniversary Bash and healthily partied the night away.

8      Members of YAH selected the “Be Free. Live Life to its Fullest” theme for the anniversary party as Mr Felix Tang, outgoing Chairperson of the YAH Programme explained that the theme suggests breaking free from the trappings of smoking, drinking and other high risk behaviours that can be detrimental to one's health. He added, “Our theme also depicts the energy and vibrancy, echoed by this evening’s vibrant and energetic performances by different youth groups such as West Grand Boulevard , that come with making the right choices about healthy lifestyle.”

“Say No” to an unhealthy lifestyle through the YAH blog

9       At the anniversary party, YAH also launched the YAH blog on its website (http://www.yah.sg). The YAH blog is an online platform for YAH members, volunteers, the executive committee and youths to express their views and experiences.

10       YAH hopes to encourage their peers to share and voice their opinions in an online environment. To begin blogging, users simply have to register online to get a username and password at http://www.yah.sg.

11      To kick-start the blog, YAH also launched the "Say No" blogging contest at the Anniversary Bash, where the party-goers snapped pictures of themselves posing with specific “Say No” banners displayed at DXO Club. They are then to post their pictures or video clips with a short post on what saying NO means to them online through the YAH blog. This competition will last until 31 January 2007 and the best entry stands a chance to win an iPod Nano worth almost S$300. Interested youths can still visit the contest website at http://www.yah.sg/index.php/winner/ for more details.

Annex 1

FACT SHEET

THE YOUTH ADVOLUTION FOR HEALTH (YAH) PROGRAMME

Introduction to YAH

The engagement of youth in the design, organisation and implementation of health promotion initiatives is recognised as a strategic move¹ in health promotion as it is believed that youth advocacy allows them to play an active role in addressing concerns unique to themselves².

The Youth Advolution for Health (YAH) Programme was thus launched in September 2005. The word “advolution” is coined from the words “advocate” and “revolution”. The YAH programme provides a platform for youth to be involved in advocating, planning, revolutionising and implementing programmes to help their peers lead a healthy lifestyle.

The YAH Programme is similar to peer advocacy programmes in countries such as USA , Taiwan , Thailand and Malaysia . It is fully driven by youth and seeks to leverage on the influence of peer-led projects to bring about positive changes in the health behaviours of the young. Youths can promote various aspects of health which include

• Smoke-free lifestyle
• Mental wellness
• STI/AIDS prevention
• Healthy nutrition
• Regular physical activity

For a start, the programme focused on encouraging a smoke-free lifestyle among the young. The youth were encouraged and guided in championing activities in their school or community to raise awareness of the benefits of a smoke-free lifestyle and how the young can adopt such a lifestyle.

Annex 2 lists to-date initiatives that the youth have rolled out to raise the awareness of leading a smoke-free lifestyle among their peers

Future plans for the YAH Programme

The interest the youths have in health advocacy has been very encouraging. To spur this interest further, YAH will be expanding its focus to include the other 4 topics listed above. The Health Promotion Board will continue to provide professional consultancy, educational resources and funding for project implementation.

In addition to sponsorship of health advocacy projects, HPB has developed a 6-session training course to equip the aspiring health advocates on updates on pertinent youth health issues and the know-hows of project management. This will be held between January and March 2007 and is titled ‘You^TH Take Charge’.

Footnotes

2. Winkleby, M.A., Feighery, E., Dunn, M., Kole, S., Ahn, D., Killen, J.D. (2004) ‘Effects of an Advocacy Intervention to Reduce Smoking Among Teenagers,’ Archives of Pediatric Adolescence Medicine. vol. 158: 269-275