Virginia Student Wins National “Tobacco – I’m Not Buying It” Video Contest
The top prize of a national contest sponsored by the U.S. surgeon general’s office was won by a student from the Virginia Commonwealth University.
Ayyaz Amjad of Woodbridge won the grand prize in the 18-25 age group of the “Tobacco – I’m Not Buying It” video contest, for his video about the dangers of smoking, entitled “You Don’t Smoke Cigarettes, Cigarettes Smoke You.” The video provides facts about smoking, and shows an animated robotic cigarette taking people out of a cigarette package, and smoking them.
According to Amjad, it took him two weeks to finish the video, and another two weeks spreading news about online voting for the contest. The 21-year-old kinetic imaging major shared: “I really made the video to reach my friends and the community… There aren’t any health benefits to smoking, mostly consequences. That’s really where I got the idea.”
He shared further that many friends had informed him that the video has made a “huge impact on their lives and makes them think twice about smoking.” Some even professed that they kick the habit completely, mainly because they were not keen about having “a giant robot cigarette smoking them.”
The winners of the video contest were announced by officials late Wednesday. Dantreal Waiters and the Manatee Youth for Christ SOZO team, from Bradenton, Florida, rapped about the dangers of tobacco and why they were not buying it; they won the grand prize in the 13-17 age category. Amjad won for himself $1,000.
Tags: anti-smoking campaign, anti-smoking video contest, anti-tobacco campaign, anti-tobacco video contest, no to smoking video, smoking videos
