Project notes: Giving In and Giving Up

Goals: To raise awareness of the dangers of smoking and encourage young people to give up

Funding: Received 3,000 from Eastern Birmingham Primary Care Trust's smoking team and 2,000 from Positive Activities for Young People

Anna Marchbank learned the hard way about just how addictive cigarettes can be. "I started smoking when I was a teenager and carried on for 17 years," says the project worker at the Young People's Health Project in east Birmingham. "No matter how hard I tried to give up, I always ended up smoking. I was constantly worried about my health."

Determined not to let other young people fall into the same trap, Marchbank established smoking awareness project Giving In and Giving Up with her colleague Isabel Vanderheeren. Over the course of last summer, the project recruited eight teenagers aged 13 to 16 from east Birmingham who attended a series of workshops and produced two information packs. The first is a comic aimed at 11- to 14-year-olds that tells the story of a young woman called Sarah who starts smoking to fit in at her new school, but then becomes addicted. The second is a discussion pack containing a series of striking smoking-related images designed to be used by youth professionals.