Written by Rima Youssof
Translated by Assaad Maalouf

The Green Hand Association is a movement that is concerned about environmental and social culture and is composed of six departments: environmental, social, cultural, smoking prohibition, road of safety and youth. It includes more than 218 volunteers from different regions of Lebanon.

The association screamed loud lately at the administration department of the Lebanese University for the purpose of banning smoking in Lebanese drama scenes, in terms of annulling also the designs showing smoking in general, cigarette and narghile in particular.

The association, as its president Zaher Radwan told the National News Agency, started its activities in 2003 in the field of environmental health and organized many campaigns and activities in this regard. It worked on preventing smoking in schools and universities and had a big role in prohibiting smoking in public places. All such activities were part of a regional campaign crafted by the World Health Organization.

Concerning a project to activate the prohibition of smoking in Lebanese drama, Radwan said that his association didn't want to cancel the existence of smoking in scenes if smoking was part of the script, yet the association would try to prohibit as much as possible the presence of narghiles or smoking that were irrelevant to the script but found there as mere decoration, in order to serve the environment and the activities of the National Program for Banning Smoking.

Radwan said that the campaign's pioneer is actor Carmen Lebbos who used to be a heavy smoker 10 years ago and refrained from it thereafter. Actor Talal Jurdi is still a heavy smoker but gave a word during the campaign against smoking and the bad consequences of it. Jurdi said that he would discuss with the writer and director any script containing smoking or decors of smoking in favor of trying as much as possible to cancel such scenes that indicate unhealthy ambiences and to restrain the usage of promotions or ads encouraging smoking.

The association is trying hard to combat smoking by all means and is seeking a popular and societal aid in this concern.