Mail: muhammadyusufkarim@gmail.

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line: m.yusufkarim
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Activity title: Solo Tobacco Control Initiative
Type of activity: Initiative
Provide a short description of activity?
Solo Tobacco Control Initiative is a program created by BEM FK UNS with the collaboration
of several health care institutions for example Solo Cancer Society, Yayasan Kanker
Indonesia, Persatuan Dokter Paru Indonesia, RS Muwardi, PMI and lots of other social
foundations. This program gives people in Surakarta more understanding about cigarettes
harm which can trigger reduction of cigarette consumption. There are 5 activities that we do;
(1) campaigning about harms of cigarette to general society via social media and posters, (2)
seminar from pulmonary specialist doctors which is attended by youth and LSM, (3) petition
from society which declare tobacco control action, (4) measurement of Peak Expiratory Flow
Rate (PEFR) to give information about their pulmonary health, and (5) Satgas STR (Sekolah
Tanpa Rokok) which monitored by students in their highschools and universities to make sure
that nobody smokes in school area.
Provide a problem statement for your activity?
As a country which cooperates with WHO to maintain its citizens health, health
status in Indonesia right now is pathetic particularly in tobacco control. 52 million people
around Indonesia smoke based on a research that was done in 1980-2012 by Washington
University. In 2015, 51,1% out of more than 250 million people in Indonesia smoke (Antara).
That means more than 127 million people in Indonesia smoke. This number has doubled
since the government of Indonesia did nothing but promote cigarette for their own citizen.
The regulation to restrict increasing number of smoker such as PP nomor 109 tahun 2012,
UU nomor 36 tahun 2009, or Perwali Surakarta havent been implemented well enough by
people nor the government itself. In Perwali Surakarta for example, stated that nobody should
never smoke, sell, or campaign about smoking in Balaikota Surakarta or sanction will be
given to the culprit. Sadly this only implemented by several people, in reality lots of people
still sell or even smoke around Balaikota Surakarta. Moreover, we think that this kind or

regulation is not giving wide impact since its only implemented in Balaikota Surakarta but
not in another public space, for exampe universities or malls. Universities and malls are being
occupied by thousands of people each day, still majority of those people can freely smoke in
those sites. This case shows how the regulation right now is not sufficient enough to decrease
number of smokers in Indonesia because the lack of impact and understanding of the smokers
or people itself.
From the governments side, the government hesitates to strictly restrict consumption
of cigarette because tobacco industry gives one of the biggest income in Indonesia. Cigarette
tax gives 57 trillion rupiah compared to Freeport which only give 1 trillion rupiah every year
(KPAI). This is also the reason behind governments refusal to ratify Framework Convention
on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which proposed by WHO. That refusal makes Indonesia the only
country in Asia who has no intention to control tobacco consumption. That demeanor of
Indonesia government proves that government failed to do its obligation as regulator of its
citizens health. The government chooses the political economy profiting from death,
meaning the government sacrifice peoples health by letting them consume tobacco as much
as they want with lax regulation for the sake of Indonesias income. This is a very sad
condition as we all know that tobacco, specifically cigarette, does more harm than good to
our body. 200 thousand people in Indonesia died because of cigarette every year but the
government still chooses money over people. The status quo right now is so pathetic as it
triggers medical students, including students of FK UNS, to make some programs or
activities to give understanding to people and reduce the consumption of tobacco in
Indonesia.
How do you evaluate you activity?
STCI is a new program which operates since 2015. The first STCI exhibition run well,
enthusiasm of people were high, all components which collaborate with STCI actually help
students to run this exhibition by coming to the event and monitoring the preparation of the
program, also campaigning about the program itself so more people come to the event. Of
course for a beginner, STCI has some lacks although those lacks is not crucial for achieving
the goal itself. Timeline, mechanism, and job description on how this program will be run
should be more detail so we have an exact direction on doing this program.

How does the activity impact the community on a local, regional, or global level?
The goal of this activity is to control tobacco consumption by giving understanding to people
in Surakarta about harms of cigarette. By giving understanding, people will know how
dangerous cigarette are, how its not justifiable from the health and moral perspective. From
the health perspective, cigarette contains lots of harmful substations that can cause cancer,
heart disease, and other severe disease. This kind disease will always occur on smokers that
will later reduce their life ages. This is why its such a waste if people buy thing that will only
do harms to their body. From the moral perspective, every single person has the same right to
breathe the fresh air. But since there is no regulation that strictly forbids smokers to smoke or
simply divide smokers and non-smokers in all public spaces, there is nobody who monitors
this kind of regulation, lots of people have to give up their rights to breathe the fresh air for
the sake of others addiction which only brings harm. This is not justifiable because they
dont only take others right to breathe the fresh air, they also give them contagious smoke of
their cigarette. They dont only steal others right, they also harm them. By giving them this
kind of understanding, we hope that people will think more how harmful cigarette is and how
it is not justifiable to consume it.
Our program can answer this challenge on how we can give good understanding to society.
STCI is supported by all layers of society from students to professionals so this activity is
credible enough to give people understanding to begin with. Credibility can be shown by how
the program is being done, for example is how specialists of pulmonary (since cigarette have
close correlation with pulmonary health) give materials how harmful cigarette are on the
seminar which is attended by students (from high school and universities) and social
institutions. By inviting expert, for example dr. Dewi Nur Makhabbah, Sp.P. who also one of
the initiator of our collaboration with PDPI and RS Moewardi, we expect participant to
understand the details of how dangerous cigarette are, then give education to general society
to increase their understanding that it is not justifiable to smoke from health perspective.
The campaign which is done by students and social institutions can give wide and general
impact because those 2 components leads layer of common people on society. By
campaigning via social media, poster, or CFD (car free day), common people in Solo will
know first thats the danger of tobacco and how is the ideal condition of tobacco regulation in
Indonesia generally, in Solo specifically. STCI also provide students a platform to monitor the
cigarettes consumption by giving them authority in their schools and campus as satgas. They

have obligation and authority to make sure that their school is tobacco-free. They can make
regulation on how to ban tobacco from their school and punish smokers at school, and so on.
Moreover, this kind of program is actually happening not only in Surakarta but also in
Yogyakarta and another region of Indonesia, STCI can collaborate with another similar
program, since STCI has the most wide support from all components, to integrate our goal
and make our impact bigger and bigger.
The support given is not only increase credibility of the program but also make the program
more powerful since all components of society for example students, social institutions (PMI,
Solo Cancer Society, Yayasan Kanker Indonesia), and professionals (hospital and Persatuan
Dokter Paru Indonesia) are willing to make sure that the activities provided by STCI worked
well by doing pre and post program research to get the data of how well the goal is achieved.
Futhermore, the reseach will not only about the effectiveness of our program on giving
understanding to society but also developing more rseacrh about cigarette and tobacco. For
example how to reduce the cigarette addiction on smokers, how is the air condition in the city
which is polluted by cigarettes smoke, and more. This kind of research will not only take
Solo as the object, but also another cities. We have 12 more cities to collaborate with in this
kind of smoke-polluted-air reseach, one of them is Yogyakarta. By doing multi-city research,
we belive we will be more credible to work with since we have valid source and lots of links,
so the impact will not only be in Solo alone but also in another cities we collaborate with.
Moreover, the regulation of this program is easy to do because the mechanism is not
complicated, theres no intricate bureaucracy needed, but sufficient enough to achieve the
goal. We believe by making simple and sufficient mechanism, STCI can integrate and also be
the model of another similar program to achieve the same goal, controlling tobacco regulation
in Indonesia.