2008-2009 MASS YOUTH AGAINST TOBACCO MINI-GRANTS

We are excited to announce our brand-new grants program to support youth-led tobacco prevention initiative in 2008-2009!  Last year, about 530 youth were directly involved in the mini-grant efforts alone, and made huge strides in changing local tobacco policy and the retail environment and shifting social norms.  We hope to keep up this great youth-led tobacco prevention work and expand it even more this year!

In this fourth year of MYAT, mini-grant categories were developed through a close collaboration between youth and adults.  On May 31, 2008 – World No Tobacco Day – over 200 youth and adults gathered from across the state to discuss their top tobacco-related concerns at Power to Mass Youth – The 84 Take Action!  At this event, youth had the opportunity to meet with Massachusetts Department of Public Health Tobacco Control Program (MTCP) leaders and work with them to make recommendations on ways to help make their community more tobacco-free.  The following were the three agreed-upon areas of concern to address in the upcoming year: 

• Concern 1: Family and friends who smoke and are at risk of disease and death,
• Concern 2: Target marketing of tobacco products towards poor people, people of color and youth, and
• Concern 3: Younger kids exposed to secondhand smoke and unhealthy role modeling.

With these identified areas of concern, adults from MYAT and MTCP worked together with youth representatives from the Power to Mass Youth event to brainstorm strategies that would address these concerns.  Taking these strategies into consideration, three mini-grant categories were developed.  Groups, if eligible, may apply for more than one grant, but each group will only be awarded one grant.    

CHECK OUT THE THREE GRANT CATEGORIES

Grant Category 1: Youth Create Change! – Strengthening policies for healthier communities
Over the past decade, great strides have been made in the national and state policy arena around tobacco control.  The Master’s Settlement Agreement in 1998 established more restrictions on where tobacco companies can advertise.  And, since the Smoke-Free Workplace Law was passed in Massachusetts in 2004, exposure to secondhand smoke has been greatly limited to the non-smoking public.  However, there is still work to be done throughout Massachusetts’ communities!  Communities are still barraged by tobacco advertising that particularly targets youth, low-income communities and minorities.  Children and young people are often subjected to secondhand smoke in youth-frequented outdoor spaces such as parks or playgrounds.  This mini-grant supports groups who want to address target marketing and smoking in youth-frequented spaces and mobilize their community around these issues through local policy change efforts.

• 2-3 projects will be funded
• Funding Range: $10,000-$15,000

Download Grant Category 1 application here - Word Document

Download Grant Category 1 application here - Adobe PDF

Grant Category 2: Role Models – Take Action!
Massachusetts young people recently expressed a grave concern for the effects that secondhand smoke and unhealthy role modeling have on younger children.  Studies have shown that youth are more likely to become smokers if they live with a smoker or have two or more friends who smoke.   Also, many role models in the sports and entertainment industries smoke either onscreen or in real life.  It sometimes seems like everyone is doing it.  This mini-grant supports groups who will train and rally role models in their communities and beyond to speak out against tobacco use and the tobacco industry to change the perceived social norm that everybody smokes.  Because the truth is, most people don’t!

• 10-12 projects will be funded
• Funding Range: $8,000-$10,000

Download Grant Category 2 application here - Word Doc

Download Grant Category 2 application here - Adobe PDF

Grant Category 3: Taking Back Our Communities – Taking on Big Tobacco
Each year, the tobacco industry spends approximately $13.1 billion on tobacco advertisements, and preliminary studies have shown that these advertisements are disproportionately concentrated in and targeted towards communities of color and low-income and/ or LGBT communities.   Also, new tobacco products are being produced that often target these same communities.   Just as the tobacco companies study these communities, we too need to study communities of color, low-income communities and LGBT communities to better support them.  This mini-grant supports groups working with communities of color and low-income and/or marginalized communities to research the cultural perceptions of smoking in their community, working with retailers to curb the influence of the tobacco industry in the retail environment, and bringing public awareness around how tobacco companies are targeting them.

• 5-8 projects will be funded
• Funding Range: $8,000-$15,000

Download Grant Category 3 application here - Word Doc

Download Grant Category 3 application here - Adobe PDF

ADDITIONAL MINI-GRANT RESOURCES

Overall Frequently Asked Questions about the 2008-2009 Mini-grant RFPs
Trends in Youth Tobacco Use in MA, 1993-2004 Report

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