With its new child and youth programme - Free. Fair. Future. – the Tobacco Prevention Fund takes a new approach to prevention and aspires to a world in which children and young people can live a life free from tobacco and nicotine:
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A focus on children and young people: Together with children and young people, we develop activities that focus on empowering people to take control of their free time and lives.
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Educating and shielding from influence: We highlight how ubiquitous tobacco products and smoking are in our day-to-day lives, the negative effects they have, and how children and young people are deliberately influenced.
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Working together to bring about change: Each and every one of us can play a part in changing the current situation. The whole of society needs to take responsibility for the health of children and young people if we want to achieve our goal of making sure that smoking is no longer seen as the norm and harnessing this change to make a life free from tobacco and nicotine possible.
The vision of Free. Fair. Future.: that children and young people in Switzerland can live a life free from tobacco and nicotine.
The protection of children and young people is enshrined in Switzerland’s Federal Constitution. But when it comes to tobacco and nicotine products, this protection is insufficient. Compared with many other countries, Switzerland’s tobacco and nicotine regulations are lax and the tobacco industry wields a great deal of power and influence. Smoking is therefore worryingly widespread, accepted and visible in advertising and promotion in Switzerland, e.g. at festivals and on social media. The upshot of this is that 24.5% of 15- to 19-year-olds smoke, which is above average by international comparison.
The Tobacco Prevention Fund (TPF) therefore aims to counter this trend with its child and youth programme – which goes by the name of Free. Fair. Future.
How we want to change the situation together
The measures of Free. Fair. Future. call into question the ubiquity of tobacco and nicotine consumption and are aimed at the whole of society. At the heart of the programme are the needs of children and young people. We focus on working with them to change their environment. For example, through the following measures and initiatives:
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We are developing a new prevention lesson programme with teachers and school classes.
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Through various measures we are creating smoke-free spaces and public events.
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Established and well-known programmes like Swiss Olympic’s ‘cool and clean’ are being realigned with the approaches of Free. Fair. Future.
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We are creating a virtual platform which is co-developed by children and young people and which provides a space for people to engage with the topic in a light-hearted and informative way.
We appeal to the public, the media and policymakers and focus on the issues of the visibility of tobacco and nicotine and the lack of protective measures:
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We address controversial topics in a targeted way and communicate hard-hitting facts to the public about the tobacco industry and tobacco advertising.
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We develop a network of committed individuals and organisations and allow as many different people as possible in Switzerland to participate.
The action areas of Free. Fair. Future.
Various areas of life are relevant to children and young people. These areas of life underpin the activities and services of Free. Fair. Future. and the specific measures are located in these five action areas.
All the measures within the framework of Free. Fair. Future. are presented in detail on this website. The programme is also accompanied by various support areas that are presented under organisation.
