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“These pictures mean a lot about what we feel about this industry and our point of view,” said Kennedy High School student Holly Corriher about her photo, “From the Underworld.”
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Memorial High School student Victor Hernandez points to his photograph of a smoked cigarette butt lodged in the crack of a sidewalk.

The photo caption starts: “Cigarettes get between everything.”

“People might dream to be a doctor, lawyer — then cigarettes get introduced,” said Victor, explaining the photo’s meaning. “With every cigarette it gets harder and harder to quit; you get closer to death. Your original dream goes away.”

'Photovoice Smoke-Free’
Victor is one of eight students from Edgewood Independent School District’s Kennedy and Memorial high schools who recently took part in a “Photovoice Smoke-Free” project. Students took photos and wrote captions to visually describe the problem of tobacco to policymakers and decision-makers.

The project, sponsored by the San Antonio Tobacco Prevention and Control Coalition, paired tobacco prevention researchers at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at The UT Heath Science Center San Antonio with students in the Youth Against Gang Activity program of the Family Service Association, a San Antonio nonprofit agency.

For several Saturdays over the past few months, the students studied photography, walked their neighborhoods and took pictures.

Then they met to discuss their photos, write captions and create presentation boards.

Revealing their community
“The kids are telling us the story. They’re telling us what the problem is. They’re living the problem,” said Ricardo Espinoza of the Family Service Association.

Tobacco indeed is a big problem in San Antonio. Statistics show that middle-school youth in San Antonio have a higher percentage of tobacco use (13.6 percent) than their counterparts in the rest of Texas (9.5 percent).

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, don’t smoke, and this and that.’ But it’s in our homes,” said Christian Alarcon-Avila, a Photovoice participant from Kennedy High School. “It’s not just in advertisements and commercials. It’s in our homes. It’s all around us.”

Kennedy and Memorial High School students displayed their photographs at a ceremony Jan. 22 in the Alameda Koehler Auditorium. Shown are (left to right) Amelie Ramirez, Dr.P.H., director of the Health Science Center’s Institute for Health Promotion Research, student Holly Corriher, Ricardo Espinoza of the Family Service Association and Luis Velez, M.D., Ph.D., Photovoice project facilitator and IHPR researcher.

Photo display tells the story
The students recently showcased their presentation boards to more than 50 friends, family members and health and policy officials at a ceremony Jan. 22 at the Alameda Koehler Auditorium in San Antonio.

Photos featured vivid scenes of burned-up piles of cigarette butts, “matchbox” business cards and empty cigarette packages and labels littering walkways and grassy areas.

“These pictures mean a lot about what we feel about this industry and our point of view,” said Holly Corriher of Kennedy High School.

Policymakers listen
Several health and policy dignitaries lauded the students’ work at the ceremony. Among those in attendance were members of the San Antonio Tobacco Prevention and Control Coalition, a state-funded alliance of organizations that work together to prevent tobacco use in Bexar County. They included Amelie G. Ramirez, Dr.P.H., director of the Health Science Center's IHPR, a coalition partner; Luis Velez, M.D., Ph.D., Photovoice project facilitator and IHPR researcher; Bryan Alsip, M.D., M.P.H., assistant director of the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District; and Matthew Jones, legislative director for Texas State Rep. Joaquin Castro.

“We believe that participation helped these students identify important issues related to tobacco through group discussions and photographs and empowered the students to take social action within their community,” Dr. Ramirez said.

Joann Aguirre of Kennedy High School said the Photovoice project will have a lasting effect on those who were involved and those who see the photos and captions.

“I want to thank everybody who was in it…for wanting to change things,” she said.

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