As of July, six everyday New Zealanders are going to be standing alongside the likes of Taika Waititi, Ladi6, Young Sid, Richard Kahui and Remix’s own Tim Phin  to front the Smoking Not Our Future campaign.

Smoking Not Our Future launched in 2006 and has continued to gather steam, now encompassing 51 high-profile New Zealanders who all share their thoughts on smoking, quitting, and being smokefree. The team behind Smoking Not Our Future ran Txt2Star, a competition where people could txt in their own smokefree messages, with a chance to win a place in the campaign.

Over 400 txts were received, a shortlisting process took place, and finally Jessica, Toni, Krysta, Emah, Caitlin and Liam were selected as winners. They were flown to Auckland to take part in a professional photoshoot and were interviewed by Dave Gibson of Elemeno P, and now they’re finally ready to be launched.

These are people from all across New Zealand each with their own story to tell. Hamilton’s Emah reflects on the financial (and sartorial) benefits of being smokefree, pointing out that by not buying cigarettes you’ve got more money to buy shoes.

Krysta, a 20 year old technical adviser from Otago grew up around smoking and says she feels lucky that she never liked it – and that people will respect you for not doing it. Toni, a 22 year old from Gisborne also grew up in a home where smoking was the norm. She and her husband don’t want smoking to be part of their young sons’ futures. Both Toni and Krysta are proud of their families for attempting to quit. Krysta says it’s “a massive achievement. By quitting you’re helping yourself and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you now.” Toni reckons “without a doubt everyone should think about quitting, maybe we can do a whole first-country-in-the world thing, get the ball rolling, which hopefully this campaign can do.”

Find out more about Toni, Krysta, Emah, and the rest of the new additions at www.notourfuture.co.nz.

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