Students: Submit your designs for the Youth Against Vaping poster contest by May 6!

The district’s Safe Schools department and Fraser Health are hosting a poster contest for Youth Against Vaping (YAV), a student advocacy initiative to increase awareness about the harms of vaping and enact political change around vaping laws.

Despite laws restricting the sale of vaping products to anyone under 19, vaping remains a serious concern in schools. These concerns include the highly addictive nature of nicotine in vaping products, as well as social effects on peers who are uncomfortable around vaping.

“We believe that youth voice can enhance the work of Safe School Liaisons and Substance Use Liaisons within our department by advocating youth concerns with vaping relating to school safety and personal health and wellness,” said Dakota Grange, acting assistant manager of Safe Schools.

“We found that there are youth raising the question about what they can do to help stop kids from vaping or for them to quit vaping,” said Nicole Hovbrender, a member of Fraser Health’s Healthy Schools program. “We created this partnership to raise awareness about the negative health impacts of vaping and to empower youth to have a voice in policy changes at both the municipal and provincial level.”

The initiative provides youth a platform to highlight the risks of vaping and call for action when it comes to vaping legislation. For instance, restricting the variety of flavoured vaping products to reduce the appeal for youth to start or continue vaping.

The poster contest aims to further spread messages of awareness around the negative impacts of vaping. The design criteria asks students to make posters that:

• Speak to changes they want to see in vaping policies in their communities, and;
• Raise awareness about Youth Against Vaping.

The contest is open to elementary and secondary students, and students can submit their designs individually, as a group or even as a class. Three winning designs will be selected to be displayed across the district, with prizes for first, second and third place. Additionally, schools can use posters created by their students who participate, regardless of whether they are selected as contest winners.

“It’s really about creating awareness and helping youth realize they have a voice in advocacy work,” said Hovbrender.

The deadline for submissions is Monday, May 6, at 3 p.m. Send images of your poster designs to sul@surreyschools.ca

If parents have any questions about vaping or want to get involved, please email sul@surreyschools.ca