SEATCA together with the Cambodia Movement for Health(CMH), WHO Cambodia and Cambodia Red Cross joined in a collaborative effort to organise a Youth Workshop on Tobacco Taxation for 100 Cambodian youths from 15 universities and 5 youth-oriented organisations.
The workshop objective is to raise awareness of the youth on the effectiveness of tobacco tax increase to reduce tobacco consumption as well as tobacco control knowledge in general. A number of crucial topics such as Tobacco Tax, Tobacco Industry Interference, Tobacco Farming were presented to them by key tobacco control advocates, SEATCA director Ms.Bungon Ritthiphakdee and SEATCA-SITT Project director Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo, Dr.Yel Daravuth of WHO Cambodia, Dr. Mom Kong and Ms.Yoeu Phallin of CMH and Atty. Keo Sokea of SK&P Law Group.
Other representatives were from the General Department of Taxation, Ministry of Finance Cambodia, Mr. Chour Se and Mr. Heng Sothy. The youth played an active role and participated eagerly to become tobacco control advocates.
At the end of the workshop, they committed to disseminate tobacco control knowledge to their friends and family as well as wider audiences through social media, eg. Facebook. In addition, they were willing mobilize themselves to establish a youth network to support tobacco control policies of Cambodia in the near future. (S. Ratanachena, SEATCA-SITT)