In-School Preventive Health Programme

When 12 year-olds open their tobacco pouches or cigarette packs, little do they know, they’re sealing their fate.

And neither do they understand the effect unhealthy dietary practices have on their future.

Adolescents in municipal schools are more vulnerable to tobacco use as well as undernutrition due to the environment surrounding them, lack of awareness and right information and peer and parental influences. They are caught in the vicious trap of poverty-undernutrition-tobacco addiction.

Such undernourished students do not lack in talent and zeal to excel but lack strength and stamina to perform. Frequently turning up on the losing side hampers their confidence and self-esteem further affecting their personal and professional life in future. In the immediate present, they lose the motivation to continue in school.

Thus, Salaam Bombay Foundation initiatives include tobacco control and awareness, life skills and leadership development. Equal importance is given to awareness on diet and nutrition, health, hygiene and physical activity among these adolescents, their parents and teachers.