Buoyed by this belief ,a group of Broadcasting students from Universiti Sains Malaysia used humour as their main ingredient in the production of an anti-smoking video entitled ‘Stop Smoking for Crying Out Loud’ in conjunction with the Green Lung Carnival held at USM today.
The 4 youngsters, Gary Chong Khin Jin, Lourdes Gason a/l Paul, Siti Hazariah Abdul Salam and Adrian Santanaraj a/l David characterized their efforts in producing the video as another alternative approach in disseminating the stop smoking message amongst the public.
Gary Chong the director, scriptwriter and leader of the group stressed that humour as a genre should be fully explored as it is not only fun but is also capable of effectively percolating into society’s collective psyche.
“Contemporary society is being racked by a plethora of stressful events and to adopt a stressful approach to disseminate our message would invite adverse reactions. Therefore, we adopted a different approach, which to us, is more effective in conveying our aspirations and desires” he said.
It took approximately three days to record and an additional three days to edit the 8 minute and 30 seconds video which was shot at strategic locations within the campus precincts in order to provide an actual picture of student life as well as highlight the negative effects of smoking and its health repercussions.
Apart from bagging the Creative Video prize, Gary also emerged runner-up in the Song Writing Category with his composition ‘2030: I Could Choose to not do Anything’. The competition was won by a talented duo, Wong Qian En and Wan In Kiat while Fluorence Ngo Kai Yan from Heng Ee National Type Secondary School emerged first in the Poster category.
The competitions were part of the Green Lung Carnival programme organized by a group of student volunteers in efforts to creatively conceptualise/package the anti-smoking campaign in USM, also euphemistically known as the ‘Green Lung’.
Prof. Asma Ismail, the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) whilst launching the Green Lung Carnival also urged that such initiatives be expanded to other institutions of higher learning in order to ensure the success of such campaigns/initiatives.
“This campaign has highlighted the students’ commitment in publicizing the university’s sustainable agenda and hence, its scope should be further expanded. Beyond that, such efforts should also be viewed positively from a research perspective so as to ensure the formulation of more systematic and effective programmes,” she said.
Also present at the ceremony were Assoc.Prof. Syed Azhar Syed Sulaiman, the Dean of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Assoc. Prof. Razak Lajis, the Director of the National Poisons Centre.
Green Lung commenced in May 2009 with a core group comprising 40 students from the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences with the aim of establishing a tobacco-free campus environment. Its membership has since increased six-fold to 250 students with penasihatan Pusat Racun Negara dan Bahagian Hal Ehwal dan Pembangunan Pelajar USM.
Apart from Green Lung, USM is also spearheading the ‘White Coffin’ and ‘Say No to Plastic’ initiatives which are also part of the efforts undertaken by a group of volunteer students.
The Green Lung was held from the 23rd to the 25th of February 2010 within the precincts of the Cultural Hall and Starwalk.
