Introduction:
Tobacco consumption in various forms is rampant at grassroot level in rural areas and all the efforts done to bring awareness about the harm it causes has failed to transcend that level, thereby, dying down before reaching the last mile. This has created a huge public health problem in the population. ‘Pledge for life - Tobacco free youth’ campaign has been launched with the aim to sensitize College and School students across the State, and through them, their near and dear ones about harms of all forms of tobacco.

Objectives:
Anti-tobacco activities in Assam, India.

Methods:
To address this Public Health problem, in Assam,India, in the year 2018 the campaign was launched as pilot. Voice of Tobacco Victims (VoTV) was at the core of its functioning and played a significant role. The campaign began through sensitization of the key officials of the Government Department of Education. Advocacy led to instructions from the Department to conduct mass Pledge in all schools of Assam. For monitoring the activity a Web based portal was created for uploading the data by the Schools.

Results:
Total of 15.5 Lakh students from 16500 Schools took ‘pledge for life’ together across the State of Assam, India.

Conclusion(s):
Research has proven that if children participate in such activities from the beginning it is highly unlikely that they will ever touch tobacco in their lives. Such initiatives by the Government are bound to bring down the prevalence of tobacco smokers in states.