A Successful Campaign :)

Today I’m sitting at my desk with a huge feeling of accomplishment. This is because today is the last day larger retailers can have cigarettes on display. One of my very first ambassador campaigns was “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” and this means it was a success.

I've done a post about smoking before and I took a lot of time to make sure the post wasn’t judgmental at all. Some of my closest friends and relatives are smokers and I do not judge them for it. I think you are allowed to make choices for yourself and if you choose to smoke then that’s fine by me. I did that post to let you know of the facts, not to encourage you to quit or to make you feel bad. I didn’t write it to scare you or to convince you that you will get cancer.

The “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” campaign wasn’t aimed at smokers. We don’t want to take away your rights, we don’t want to force you to quit. We want to make it harder for children to take up smoking and develop addictions that could potentially harm their health. Any smoker I talk to says they actively discourage their children from taking up smoking so I’m sure most of you can understand the reasoning behind the removal of public displays.

Over 300,000 children take up smoking every year. Plenty of those children will develop an addiction. Lots will go on to develop cancer. Smoking is a huge cause of cancer and it is preventable. We need to be tackling the problem to stop children taking up smoking in the first place. This is just one CRUK campaign hoping to do that.

I am immensely proud to be a Cancer Research UK Ambassador, I bore people silly with my cancer stories and campaign notes. But it is something I am hugely passionate about. My charity work has helped me cope with losing my cousin; I don’t think I would have got through the last year without having it to focus on. I got ridiculously excited when I went to Sainsbury’s in Romford and saw the blank space where the cigarette display used to be. Literally jumping up and down whilst shouting at Leo:  We did that! We are helping to save lives!

So this post is a tribute to my fellow ambassadors. We all work hard on our campaigns, we throw ourselves into them and we work hard to get good results.  Lots of my fellow ambassadors are actually fighting cancer themselves at the moment. Some are recovering from their battle, some are thankful to have survived or to have had a loved one survive and some are like me, trying to honour those they have lost. Time will tell if this campaign works and if it helps stop children from smoking but either way it is a huge accomplishment for a group of people to get a law changed and see such a major thing happen across the country. I am so proud of us all.

So whenever you go to a big shop and see the blank space that use to house cigarettes, please think of the “normal” members of the public who have formed a group of ambassadors and worked incredibly hard to make it happen. Anyone can make a difference in the world; you just need sheer force of will, clear ideas, research and a good heart.

Happy Easter Everyone :)