Our Dream: A Tobacco-Free Future For Every Child

Tobacco is the only legal consumer product that kills when used exactly as indicated by the manufacturer. This catastrophe called tobacco gives out a scary factsheet. According to the estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO) about 1 billion people around the world will die from smoking in the 21st century, which is ten times the numbers killed throughout the 20th century. The World Health Organisation’s 2012 Global Report on Mortality attributable to tobacco shows that seven percent of all deaths for age 30 years and over in India are attributable to tobacco. The proportion of deaths is almost 12 per cent for men and 1 per cent for women. If this is not alarming enough, here are some more eye openers: Around 5,500 children below the age of 15 try tobacco for the first time every day in India. There are around five million children who are addicted to tobacco. Yet incredibly, despite the dangers of tobacco having been documented and widely known for decades, it has devastated several lives and, worse, has made our children its most vulnerable victims. It is the easy availability of gutkha, beedis, cigarettes and other tobacco products with very little control over who buys them that has led to such alarming statistics. What is more appalling is the fact that of the children who try tobacco, most have very little idea about the damage these products cause to their bodies. They then become the easiest targets for tobacco companies. The idea of Salaam Bombay Foundation was born to empower these children to live their life free from the threat of tobacco and become confident adults to lead tomorrow’s India. We believe that children grow as their horizons grow – the broader their horizon, the greater their hopes and higher their aspirations.