Phillips-Beck - Blue Light Campaign

Another initiative that was encouraged in Manitoba in our First Nation communities was the Blue Light Campaign that was actually initiated by Manitoba Hydro which is our major hydroelectric company in Manitoba.  And the campaign really focused on creating smoke-free homes which benefits not only prenatal women but the entire family and children growing up in that home. And the campaign was about creating a smoke-free home and acknowledging that in a community by putting a blue light on your exterior lamp in the entrance to your home. So a blue light bulb meant that that home is a smoke-free home. And we encouraged through our program and our peer support workers to bring attention to this campaign, to encourage families to go smoke-free and to provide the blue light bulbs to their families so that they can you know take pride in recognizing that this home was a smoke-free home, and so that other community members that happened to be visiting or in the vicinity would know and respect that this home was a smoke-free home.

And we have seen in the past five years that the number of blue light homes and smoke-free homes in the province has increased and it’s really, really fascinating to fly over these communities at night time and see these blue lights. As I’m travelling through the communities I often see community members and families that have taken smoking outside. So we see them on the front porch, we see them standing in the driveways, we see them standing near their vehicles and they have chosen to take smoking outside of the home. So that’s very encouraging.