Thank you to Public Health Agency of Canada for Supporting Y4C!

Lung Saskatchewan’s community-oriented youth engagement program Youth4Change (Y4C) completed its funding agreement with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) at the end of March. Thank you to PHAC for three years of support, which allowed Y4C to achieve (and surpass!) many of the program’s goals in tobacco education, prevention, cessation, and advocacy initiatives.

We reached 1100+ youth through school presentations on tobacco and vaping in classrooms across the province. We provided advocacy training to 67 youth and 17 adult allies and brought them to Regina to advocate to the provincial government for tobacco and vapour product policy change.

Through our work in advocacy, we achieved policy change in Saskatchewan with the introduction of Bill 147, which raised the legal age to purchase tobacco and vapour products in Saskatchewan from 18 to 19 years old. We also saw the introduction of tobacco licensing in the province, which requires all tobacco retailers to be registered and licensed.

We trained 131 youth and 27 adult allies in 5 Saskatchewan communities through Y4C’s education and action stream. After youth and adult allies received training on tobacco and vapour products and leadership skills, they had the opportunity to apply for a community grant where we witnessed incredible youth initiatives such as Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nations' “Keep Tobacco Sacred” video.

Thank you to PHAC for making all of these awesome achievements possible!