Groups of Rancho Pico Junior High School students participated Tuesday afternoon in a campaign put together by Valencia High School students to raise awareness about nicotine addictions.
Valencia sophomores Arundhathi Jathin, Karisa Zoe Flores, Christian Lee, and Hudson Lee are members of the Health Occupations Students of America program, also known as HOSA, at their high school. Flores said the program is made for high schoolers who are aspiring to be future health care professionals.
She said that the program has members compete in medical-based events and this time it is was all about community awareness.
“We made a campaign called LifeUnvaped. It aims to educate and empower students against nicotine addiction,” said Flores.
Jathin said the reason the group chose to focus on nicotine addiction is because they felt it was an issue that is relevant to junior high and high school students.
The campaign started with a social media page on Instagram, she said. Their page offers interviews with various health care professionals and doctors around the Santa Clarita Valley.
“We wanted to get the input of all sorts of doctors because each doctor has their own experience when it comes to vaping and nicotine addiction,” said Jathin.
For their in-person campaign, the group chose to bring a poster to Rancho Pico posing the question, “What is the best way to overcome a nicotine addiction?”
During Rancho Pico’s lunch period, students went up with their friends to the campaign group to answer their question.
The activity was to take a Post-it note, write advice you would give someone on how to overcome a nicotine addiction, stick it on the poster and get a piece of candy for participating.
Jathin, Flores and Christian Lee were walking up to students surrounding their table and asking them to speak into the microphone about their best piece of advice they had while they waiting to fill out a note.
Several Rancho Pico students left notes with messages including, “To distract yourself by doing fun things and enjoying your life!” and “Keep calm and learn on: Check your mental health, go have fun, and go outside.”
Jathin said the group felt that a lot of people knew about nicotine addictions, but they didn’t know ways to combat an addiction. The poster would offer anonymous advice from other students on how to stop vaping or using nicotine.
“A lot of media attention these days features a lot of advertisements for nicotine products that actually pose them in a positive light,” said Christian Lee. “This poster is very brief, but it is an overall good way to raise awareness to the students.”
Jathin said the group is planning on taking the campaign to the rest of the junior high schools in the William S. Hart Union High School District.
The group said they were missing one member at the campaign presentation, Hudson Lee, but he wrote in an email, “I’m really excited to work with Rancho Pico and be part of this opportunity. I look forward to learning, growing and making a positive impact.”
