by Marty Brown
Northern News Services

NNSL (DEC 16/96) - The Inuit women's association is taking its anti-smoking campaign to television.

For years Pauktuutit has been concerned about the high rate of cancer in their communities. "And most cancer deaths are tobacco linked," said Catherine Carry, at Pauktuutit.

There are some grim tobacco fact in the Northwest Territories:

- one out of four women who smoke dies from smoking-related illness

- eight per cent of children aged five to nine in the NWT smoke

- 70 to 80 per cent of the adults over age 15 smoke

- 25 per cent of youth aged 10 to 14 smoke

- 69 per cent of youth aged 15 to 19 smoke

So, beginning on Boxing Day, three different television commercials, produced in regional Inuktitut dialects with English subtitles, will air.

The TV ads were created by Isuma Productions in Igloolik and Taqramiut Nipingat Inc. and the Inuvialuit Communications Society in Inuvik.

"Television was identified by Pauktuutit as the way to get the message across," said Carry, the project's co-ordinator. "Inuit have an oral culture."

The campaign has three major components.

Posters, leaflets, and video resources, which are all part of the community resources kit.

The education program kit aimed at children in kindergarten to Grade 5, contains a storybook, Grandpa and His Pipe, that explores tobacco use, as well as a video, teacher's guide and a poster.