ATIM’s training on tobacco industry monitoring for effective tobacco control advocacy continues to make impact

Following completion of the Building of Effective Tobacco Control Advocates (BETA) training course offered by the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU)’s Africa Centre for Tobacco industry Monitoring and Policy Research (ATIM),  over 100 advocates that have been trained have consistently provided positive feedback on knowledge gained including a recently graduated PhD candidate who also participated in the short-term research fellowship hosted by ATIM – Dr Taddeo Rusoke from Uganda. Another young trained advocate – Kenny Marau, who is now a mentee under the BETA programme also recently detailed the impact of the training on his activities and that of others in his organization in a published report titled: Observations Picked from Tobacco Industry Monitoring training in Senegal, where he articulates some of the experiences and lessons learnt during his participation. The article was published in the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) Newsletter and shared on the organization’s twitter and Facebook pages with tobacco control community.

ATIM offers an online self-paced training course which aims to strengthen tobacco control advocates capacity for effective Tobacco industry monitoring in Africa. The online course is usually followed by a competitive scholarship for qualifying participant who completed the course to attend an in-depth face to face training facilitated by some of the renowned international tobacco control experts.

The mentee referred to the training as having had a great impact which he described as an eyeopener. According to his narrative the capacity building training ignited further his interest in tobacco control consequently broadening passion for tobacco Industry Monitoring. He expressed having impressed NACADA through his knowledge sharing with others in the organisation, which also influenced more members to enroll for the BETA online course.  All referred members completed the online course and were reportedly having great influence on tobacco control in NACADA, Kenya’s focal point for drug demand reduction. Reportedly, the training also broadened the mentee’s network with several tobacco control advocates in the country. The organisation is also set to undertake collaborations with tobacco control stakeholders towards a strategic improvement of tobacco control advocacy and tobacco industry monitoring.

Source to mentee’s report on the lessons learnt from his attendance of BETA trainings.

Observations picked from tobacco Industry Monitoring Training in Senegal