The Grand Rapids Urban League is an organization dedicated to assisting others in becoming self-sufficient and healthy, and promoting racial equality. In an effort to create healthy living opportunities, the Urban League is also working with the REACH project to create smokefree and/or tobacco free environments. To accomplish this, the Urban League has committed to using strong outreach campaigns and sharing these smokefree messages with community residents, landlords, peers, and legislators at the Capital in Lansing, MI.
The Grand Rapids Urban League Urban Fellows is a group of young leaders and advocates against tobacco. These young men share a passion for raising awareness of the dangers of tobacco, how the tobacco industry targets youth, and the benefits of living tobacco-free.
Grand Rapids Urban League Urban Fellows picking up cigarette butts in the parks.
Working together they have organized several activities for spreading awareness and creating tobacco-free environments. In the local parks, they improved the spaces by picking up cigarette litter. They have also created positive messaging campaigns on tobacco-free living that they presented to the community and their peers. After learning how to use different media tools like film editing and sound production, the Urban Fellows produced and filmed a documentary entitled "Harms of Tobacco - I AM NOT A REPLACEMENT." It inspires youth to not become a 'replacement smoker,' a term used by the tobacco industry to describe new smokers.
Soon the Urban Fellows will be sharing guest blogs - stay tuned to hear their stories!
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