Goals and objectives

Decrease prevalence of smoking on our Pacific communities to align with the Government’s Smokefree 2025 goal.

Establish and launch a Nelson Marlborough Samoan and Tongan radio programme on Fresh FM to take lifestyle and health messages to the Samoan and Tongan communities in the region.

Train Samoan and Tongan leaders as Stop Smoking Practitioners.

Establish Smokefree Ambassadors to support the Stop Smoking Practitioners and ensure smokefree messages and promotions are included at Pacific events.

Train Samoan and Tongan leaders as nutrition trainers.

Develop a directory of contacts to inform, support, and provide lifestyle messaging and expertise – alcohol, gambling, physical activity, immunisation and other topics as identified by the Nelson Tasman Pacific Community Trust.

Target audience

The Samoan and Tongan communities of Nelson and Marlborough.

Project fit with 2025 aims

Raised awareness in the Samoan and Tongan communities of the benefits of Smokefree lifestyles.

Encouraged stop smoking attempts to reduce number of smokers in the Samoan and Tongan communities.

What happened

• Established a weekly radio programme which included a variety of lifestyle messages with a major focus on living smokefree. 
• Provided Stop Smoking Practitioner training for community leaders
• Supported children’s smokefree poem writing competition
• Promoted smokefree cars
• Provided smokefree merchandise and resources for radio host.

Partners

• Nelson Tasman Pacific Community Trust
• Nelson Marlborough DHB.

Key outcomes

• Radio programme established on Fresh FM
• Raised awareness of smokefree lifestyle choices and benefits general messaging around: Don’t start,  support, smokefree cars, smokefree whānau
• Raised awareness of accessibility to smokefree support to stop smoking
• 15 Stop Smoking Practitioners were trained.

Key learnings

What worked well:

• We had an excellent radio host who encouraged listeners to participant in the programme
• The radio host promoted messages –through competitions and ring-ins from listeners
• Smokefree resources/merchandise included key rings, balloons, stickers, USB Sticks, posters, quit packs and number plate surrounds – excellent incentives.

What could be done differently:

• An unsuccessful attempt was made through local colleges to recruit senior students to become Smokefree Ambassadors within the schools.  There was no response and could be attributed to the schools’ believing smoking is not an issue for them.  (We have since encouraged all schools to take part in the ASH Yr 10 survey to establish a more robust picture)
• A pre-recorded selection of smokefree messages to be used throughout to provide an easily accessible selection to reach different age groups
• More people from the Nelson Tasman Pacific Community Trust be involved in the planning, setup and delivery.

Additional information

• We were a little late getting the project launched - a family death in Samoa took the project leaders away for some weeks.
• This has been a very effective project.  Getting the radio programme established has provided impetus for the Nelson Marlborough Pacific Community to seek sponsors and advertisers to fund the programme on a long term basis.
• The involvement of the young Pacific community in supporting the poem writing competition illustrated a good understanding of the benefits of being smokefree and a keenness to promote smokefree lifestyles and Smokefree cars.
• Whilst we are still finishing off the Health Directory we have established that most of the information is available and need to put it all together in one easily accessible place.
• A further Stop Smoking Practitioner Training is scheduled for October along with a Community Nutrition course.
• A tee shirt design is awaiting approval for the Smokefree Ambassador team to wear when at events or functions to carry the smokefree messages to the wider community.