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.