Greetings beloved friends, welcome to Healthy Living. How do we safeguard the young from the harms of smoking?
Today
we share with you a talk given by Mr. Patrick Reynolds, a caring man
from the United States who established the Foundation for a Smokefree
America and is a recent recipient of the Shining World Hero Award from
Supreme Master Ching Hai.
In April 2009, Mr. Reynolds was
invited to Greece by Health Minister Avramopoulos to help build public
awareness of Greece's new no-smoking law, which took effect July 1,
2009, and to call attention to the serious health hazards posed by
second-hand smoke. There was much news coverage as Mr. Reynolds was
profiled by many national Greek media outlets.
These days Mr.
Reynolds’ Foundation is contacting health ministers in China, Russia,
India, the Middle East, South Korea,and other nations with high smoking
rates.
He hopes to meet publicly with each country’s health
minister and the children of each nation to call public attention to
the problem of tobacco use.
The Greek Health Ministry sent a
strong letter of support detailing their experience with him, saying,
『Mr. Reynolds gave a well-informed, polished and persuasive speech, and
assisted us in promoting the Greek state’s agenda on tobacco through
the very positive national media coverage of his visit.
Moreover,
his talk to youth at one of our local schools was a tremendous
success.』Patrick Reynolds is a frequent speaker at US middle schools
and high schools, presenting his unique motivational talk, 『The Truth
About Tobacco』 with passion and authenticity. He is also a popular
guest lecturer on university campuses, giving his talk 『Tobacco Wars.』
Over the years, Patrick has now presented his live talk to over 150,000
students.
In 2006, Mr. Reynolds released a DVD of a live talk
for youth, 『A Talk With Your Kids About Smoking.』 We are pleased to
present to you excerpts of that talk he gave to 1,000 ninth graders,
over a 3-part program.