Gain experience and skills that will help them as adults. Using a peer-led teaching model, senior high students help educate younger students about tobacco use issues they face when growing up. Recent focus groups have shown that teens don't want to talk to their peers about tobacco. But, they are eager to talk to younger kids about tobacco issues. They like the idea of being an authority and discouraging tobacco use among younger children.
TATU enlists teens to help younger children remain tobacco-free.
Adults are first trained as trainers, who, in turn train teens who will team up to teach younger children in their communities. Through the training, teens are turned from consumers to consumer advocates who stand against the tobacco companies' targeting of them as the next generation of tobacco addicts. Teen participants learn through day-long training and practice how tobacco controls too many lives and how tobacco companies manipulate all of us. The teens learn how vital a role they play in shaping younger children's lives. They take that knowledge to schools and their community to reach children with their messages.