My name is Destiny Zukevich, and I’m a senior and Tucumcari High School. I have been an Evolvement member for one year, and throughout that time I’ve worked on Evolvement’s Clear The Haze campaign, attended events, joined the Evolvement Leadership Team, and most recently began working on Evolvement’s 24/7 campaign.

The 24/7 campaign works to make New Mexico schools truly tobacco-free 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. My favorite part about working on this campaign has been reaching out to people to educate them about the harmful effects of commercial tobacco products, and how they should not be used in school environments by anyone at any time.

The reason I’m so passionate about the 24/7 campaign is because of my family. I have many family members who smoke cigarettes and they all have health problems on top of that. Because of this, I really fear for all of their health. Tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death, and someday I hope it isn’t a cause at all. Tobacco use is a big problem with youth my age as well. So many kids do it because it is popular and cool, but I think the 24/7 campaign can help make tobacco uncool by eliminating commercial tobacco’s influence in school environments. To make this work, I hope to do many events and projects with 24/7 to help reach this goal.

By educating students, staff, and visitors about their tobacco policies and helping divisions update their policies, I can make a big difference in my community. If there are young people working together to educate people about things like tobacco danger in our schools, school officials will surely make these necessary changes. I believe in fighting for what I believe in, and I hope to make New Mexico a safer and healthier place, one school at a time.

Destiny is a member of the 2016-2017 Evolvement New Mexico Youth Leadership Team (ENMLT).

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