Local teen named National Youth Ambassador by Tobacco-Free Kids campaign

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Twenty-five California students have been named as National Youth and Young Adult Ambassadors by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids for demonstrating leadership in fighting tobacco use in their communities.

These young leaders were among 133 youth and young adults from 33 states who participated in the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’ Digital Advocacy Symposium, a five-day online training session focused on building advocacy, communications and leadership skills.

The Youth and Young Adult Ambassadors will work with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids to advocate for effective policies to reduce youth tobacco use at the federal, state and local levels. These policies include ending the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including flavored e-cigarettes that are addicting a new generation of kids.

The Youth and Young Adult Ambassadors from California include:

· Destiny Hursh, 17, is from South Lake Tahoe, California and an incoming high school senior. She has been involved with tobacco control and prevention for six years, including with local youth development group, Friday Night Live. As an Ambassador, Destiny hopes to hold the tobacco industry accountable for their harmful marketing tactics towards teens, and educate her peers on staying tobacco-free.

· Zainab Al-Jasim, 15, is from El Centro, California and a rising high school sophomore. She has been involved in tobacco control through her local chapter of HOSA Future Health Professionals. As an Ambassador, Zainab hopes to deepen her peer-education and advocacy skills to communicate the dangers of tobacco use to her community.

· Ava Carbonara, 16, is from Long Beach, California and a rising high school senior. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention work for two years, including through local group Youth Leaders for Tobacco Control. As an Ambassador, Ava will build on her personal experiences seeing the harms of vaping in her own school and community to educate her peers and influence decision makers for strong tobacco control policies.

· Ifeyinwa "Ify" Chidi, 15, is from Brentwood, California and a rising high school junior. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for three years, including through her local chapters of TUPE and HOSA Future Health Professionals. As an Ambassador, Ify will work to hold the tobacco industry accountable for their targeting of young people and her community and educate her peers.

· Isabella Galvan, 13, is from Corona, California and a rising 8th grade student. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for two years, including through her local Youth Advisory Council. As an Ambassador, Isabella will build on her track record of educating her community about the harmful effects of tobacco and nicotine, and enhance her advocacy skills to inform policy change.

· Jazzlyn Haque, 16, is from Folsom, California and a rising high school junior. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for one year, including with the local United Corona and Norco Stamp Tobacco Out program. As an Ambassador, Jazzlyn will continue to shed light on the tobacco and vape industry's harmful marketing tactics towards youth and advocate for her community.

· Mia Hunt, 15, is from San Carlos, California and a rising high school sophomore. She has been involved in tobacco control for one year. As an Ambassador, Mia will educate her community and elected officials on the harmful marketing strategies of the vaping and tobacco industry towards youth.

· Khadijah Hussain, 17, is from Corona, California and an incoming high school senior. She has been involved in tobacco control for four years through the California Youth Advocacy Network (CYAN). As an Ambassador, Khadijah hopes to educate her peers on the dangers of the tobacco and vaping industry and hold the industry accountable for their targeting of youth.

· Aditya Indla, 15, is from Union City, California and an incoming high school junior. He has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for two years, working with his local group SayNoVaping. Aditya has served as an Ambassador with Tobacco-Free Kids since early 2020, and has been heavily involved in advocating for comprehensive flavored tobacco restrictions in California.

· Noor Kafala, 15, is from Corona, California and a rising high school sophomore. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for two years, including with her local Youth Advocacy Council and United Corona and the Norco Stamp Out Tobacco program. As an Ambassador, Noor will speak out against the harms of tobacco in her community, and educate her peers on how they can do the same.

· Connor Lam, 14, is from Pleasanton, California and is an incoming 8th grade student. Already heavily engaged in tobacco control policy change at the state level and locally in Pleasanton, he has worked over the past year with the Pleasanton Student Inter-Action Committee with a focus on flavored tobacco products. As an Ambassador, Connor will continue to be involved in policy change efforts at all levels, and further foster his advocacy network in his community to bring awareness and action to tobacco control issues.

· Xiuhui "Sophie" Lin, 14, is from Rosemead, California and an incoming high school sophomore. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention through her local chapter of HOSA Future Health Professionals. As an Ambassador, Sophie will improve her advocacy skills through social and traditional media and expand her public speaking skills and messaging to influence policy change at local, state and federal levels.

· Xoixza "Zoe" Lopez, 18, is from El Centro, California and an incoming college freshman. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for one year through her local chapter of HOSA Future Health Professionals. As an Ambassador, Zoe will educate her peers on the dangers of smoking and vaping, and enhance her community engagement skills to build momentum for policy change in her area and beyond.

· Zhuojing "Lisa" Lu, 17, is from Los Angeles, California and an incoming college freshman. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for three years, including the founding of her organization International Youth Tobacco Control. In her second year as an Ambassador, Lisa will build on her advocacy successes and continue to call out the tobacco industry for its harmful marketing towards youth.

· Dominique Molina, 16, is from Heber, California and a rising high school senior. She has been involved in tobacco control through her local chapter of HOSA Future Health Professionals. As an Ambassador, Dominique will advocate for policies that lead to cleaner air and better health for her community.

· Akshaj Molukutla, 13, is from Danville, California and a rising high school freshman. He has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for one year, including through local group CourAGE Contra Costa. As an Ambassador, Akshaj will build on his experience seeing the harms of tobacco in his community by expanding his advocacy skills.

· Milton Nguyen, 16, is from Elk Grove, California and a rising high school junior. He has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for two years, including as a leader with the California Youth Advocacy Network. As an Ambassador, Milton will draw upon his experience with the toll of tobacco in his own community and speak out on the harmful agenda of the tobacco industry.

· Sabrina Nguyen, 16, is from Corona, California and a rising high school junior. She has been involved with tobacco control and prevention for one year, including through the local United Corona and Norco Stamp Tobacco Out program. As an Ambassador, Sabrina will build on her advocacy skills to elevate her voice with decision-makers at federal and state levels to enact strong tobacco control policies that will protect youth.

· Natalia Roman, 15, is from Corona, California and a rising high school freshman. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for one year, including with her local Youth Advocacy Council. As an Ambassador, Natalia hopes to shed light on the harmful marketing tactics of the tobacco and vape industry targeting youth and educate her peers to build her movement locally.

· Louis Sanchez, 15, is from Sugarloaf, California and a rising high school sophomore. He has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for one year, including with his group Above the Influence. As an Ambassador, Louis will educate his community on the harms of the tobacco industry, and be involved in policy change efforts at the state and federal levels.

· Sophia Thompson, 14, is from Pleasanton, California and an incoming high school freshman. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for one year, as a member of her local Youth Advisory Council. As an Ambassador, Sophia will enhance her leadership and advocacy skills to spread awareness of tobacco control issues in her community, and influence policy changes at all levels.

· Matthew Tong, 13, is from Elk Grove, California and a rising 8th grade student. He has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for two years. As an Ambassador, Matthew will work to raise awareness on tobacco's toll on his community.

· Olivia Tong, 10, is from Elk Grove, California and a rising 6th grade student. She has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for one year. As an Ambassador, Olivia will enhance her peer education and advocacy skills, and inform her community on the harmful effects of tobacco on people's health and the environment.

· Samuel Tong, 15, is from Elk Grove, California and a rising high school sophomore. He has been involved in tobacco control and prevention work for three years. As an Ambassador, Samuel will draw on his experience of seeing the toll of flavored tobacco products in his school and community, and utilize the media to increase awareness and engage decision-makers.

· Chanakya "Chanu" Valmiki, 16, is from El Centro, California and a rising high school junior. He has been involved in tobacco control and prevention for two years, including through his local chapter of HOSA Future Health Professionals. As an Ambassador, Chanu hopes to inform his peers on the dangers of vaping and tobacco use.

“We are thrilled to welcome this new class of Youth and Young Adult Ambassadors, whose passion and leadership will help us create the first tobacco-free generation,” said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “Young people are critical voices in the fight against tobacco because they speak from experience about how they are targeted by the tobacco industry. Policy makers should listen and support strong policies to protect our kids, including a prohibition on all flavored tobacco products.”

While the United States has greatly reduced youth smoking, use of e-cigarettes among young people has skyrocketed in recent years. From 2017 to 2019, e-cigarette use more than doubled among high school students (to 27.5%) and tripled among middle school students (to 10.5%), according to the 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey. More than 5.3 million kids used e-cigarettes 2019 – an increase of more than 3 million in two years. Sweet flavors like gummy bear, mint and mango have fueled the popularity of e-cigarettes among kids.

Other flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, are also popular among youth. The tobacco industry has a long history of targeting kids, Black Americans and other groups with marketing for menthol cigarettes and other flavored products, with devastating consequences. More than half of all youth smokers today – including seven out of ten Black youth smokers – smoke menthol cigarettes.

The California Senate recently passed a bill to end the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including flavored e-cigarettes and menthol cigarettes. The bill is currently pending in the State Assembly.

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, killing approximately 480,000 people and costing about $170 billion in health care bills each year.

In California, 2.0 percent of high school students smoke traditional cigarettes, while 10.9 percent use e-cigarettes. Tobacco use claims 40,000 lives in California each year.

The Youth and Young Adult Ambassadors were selected through a competitive application process and participated in the Digital Advocacy Symposium to become powerful advocates for change. In addition to gaining advocacy and communications skills, these young leaders learned about how tobacco use is a social justice issue because of tobacco-related health disparities due to the tobacco industry’s longtime targeting of minority populations.

- Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids press release