The tobacco industry has become an ingrained foundation in Indonesian culture. With a population of over 260 million people and 336 billion cigarettes being produced in 2015 (1), an enormous percentage of the population smoke cigarettes. The World Health Organisation suggests that 65% of the male population smokes and there are over 214,000 tobacco related deaths each year (2). Problematically, it has become a huge factor in the Indonesian economy, with the industry funding sporting events, large scale advertising and owning a dominating presence within the communities. Additionally, the extremely affordable pricing and the widespread access makes devising a solution a complicated and intricate process.

We used an old Australian TV advertisement which demonstrated the symptoms of emphysema through an interactive breathing exercise as inspiration for out project. This advertisement was extremely successful as it allowed you to step into the shoes of a smoker who is experiencing the disease and physically empathise with the smoker. We found this sort of experience informative but also effective in communicating a difficult point through interaction.

Australian Emphysema Ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SN4xLqYTuE

Our intervention is an informative package intended to be handed out to small communities or groups to create discussion, inform and encourage change through community members strengthening one another. The package includes six cards, candles and straws; one of the cards feature the mission statement and QR code to the website, another is fact sheet on the causes, symptoms and prevention of emphysema and four breathing exercises that replicate the shortness of breath experienced with the late stages of emphysema. The candles and straws included in the package are necessary for
experiments one and three.

With further time consideration and funding, we believe we can improve upon this idea in several ways.  Our media outreach is currently limited to Instagram and a webpage. We intend to further spread our influence through other social media sites to reach a wider audience and hopefully, spread awareness of tobacco related diseases. Furthermore, a more extensive list of experiments could be devised with further research which could further explain symptoms of tobacco related diseases to help better resonate with youth. Additionally, we could aim to create the packages with more sustainable materials, as well as reusable household items such as bamboo and plastic bottles in future experiments to reduce costs in terms of shipping, material sourcing and also provide a second use for the products, rather than simply discarding them.

Being made aware of the minute advertisement there is for anti-smoking in Surabaya, our intervention aims to bring further awareness of the damaging health effects of smoking.  Through our initiative we hope to bring people to a closer understanding, through emphasising with the negative experiences caused by smoking. Our kits are just one step forward for our incentive. With support from community members and organisations we envision that Tahan Nafas will inspire and move people to make a change.