You’re a winner if you take a stand against smoking!

Sixteen lucky teenagers from all over Northern Ireland have won a number of prizes from the Health Promotion Agency (HPA) by entering the www.up-2-you.net website competition against smoking.

The winners who attended an awards ceremony at the HPA were selected from over 1,300 entries for a competition which encouraged young people to navigate their way around the site to find the answers to questions about how smoking can damage your health.

The website forms one element of the HPA’s anti-smoking public information campaign which primarily focuses on smoking. This website has recently been updated to include information on alcohol and drugs and is targeted towards pupils in years 8, 9 and 10 as a health information toolkit.

Research from the HPA shows that one in three Year 12 girls in Northern Ireland are smoking every day which is double the number for boys of the same age.

Speaking during the presentations, Alice Quinn, Chair of the HPA, said: “Smoking is one of the most challenging issues for public health today. We know from research that the majority of young people become involved with cigarettes in the first few years of secondary school. This is why the up-2-you campaign focuses on this age group. The young people who have won these prizes today know that smoking kills and they are the winners if they have take a stand not to smoke.”

BBC Sports presenter, Jerome Quinn, also attended the awards event by distributing prizes to the young people.

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