The Smoke Free Schools Programme provides a complete, teacher-ready curriculum consisting of six 45-minute sessions for students in grades 7 through 9. Sessions progress from understanding addiction biology through to media literacy, peer-pressure resistance skills, and personal action planning.

Schools that participated in the pilot showed a 19% lower rate of smoking initiation compared to matched control schools.

Effective tobacco prevention in schools depends on teachers who feel confident, informed, and supported. Smoke Free Greece runs two-day intensive teacher training workshops three times per year in Athens, Thessaloniki, and Patras, with online editions available for educators in more remote regions.

Over 1,200 teachers have completed the training since its launch.

The Smoke Free Neighbourhoods Initiative works in communities where smoking rates significantly exceed the national average. In partnership with local community centres, health centres, and municipal services, we run a combination of cessation clinics, public talks, and environmental activities.

The initiative has operated in 14 neighbourhoods across Athens and Thessaloniki.

Smoke Free Arts is an annual creative competition open to students aged 12 to 18 across Greece. Entrants submit original work — visual art, short film, or spoken word — exploring the theme of living tobacco-free.

Works shortlisted for the national final are exhibited at a public gallery event in Athens. Winners receive mentorship from professional artists and their work is featured in Smoke Free Greece communications for the following year.

The Panhellenic School Conference on Tobacco Prevention is Smoke Free Greece’s flagship annual event. Now in its fifteenth year, the conference convenes student delegates from across Greece for a full-day programme of keynote addresses, evidence-based workshops, and collaborative action planning.

The 2025 conference was attended by 847 students from 212 schools. The theme was “Generation Free: Refusing the Industry’s Story.”

In collaboration with the municipalities of Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, and Larissa, Smoke Free Greece is piloting a programme to designate and enforce smoke-free outdoor zones around playgrounds and schools.

Each municipality will install clear signage, provide staff training for enforcement officers, and report quarterly on compliance rates. Smoke Free Greece will supply educational materials for community outreach and handle media communications.

The pilot runs through December 2026, with an evaluation to be published in early 2027.

Smoke Free Greece has partnered with the Hellenic Society of General Practice and the Pan-Hellenic Pharmaceutical Association to create a seamless referral pathway for smokers seeking to quit. When a patient expresses a desire to stop smoking, their GP or pharmacist can now directly connect them with a certified cessation counsellor within the network.

The network currently includes 48 counsellors across 22 cities. All counsellors have completed an accredited training programme co-developed by Smoke Free Greece and the Medical School of the University of Athens.

Smoke Free Greece has joined a European Union-funded consortium aimed at supporting tobacco farmers in Greece who wish to transition to alternative crops. The initiative provides direct grants, agronomic advice, and market-linkage support to farming households in Epirus and Western Macedonia.

Over 300 farming families have enrolled in the first cohort. Early results show strong interest in saffron, aromatic herbs, and specialty pulses as viable economic alternatives.

This programme reflects our belief that public health goals and rural economic welfare are not in conflict.

Today we publish our five-year impact report, documenting outcomes across every programme we have run since 2019. The data, compiled in partnership with the Behrakis Research Lab, shows a statistically significant decline in youth smoking initiation in regions with sustained programme presence compared to control regions.

Key findings include a 22% relative reduction in first-time cigarette experimentation among 14-16 year-olds, and an 18% increase in students who correctly identify e-cigarettes as addictive nicotine-delivery devices.

The full report is available for download in both Greek and English.

Smoke Free Greece’s flagship school campaign completed its most successful year to date, reaching over 10,000 students in 120 schools across all 13 regional units of Greece. Trained educators delivered age-appropriate sessions on nicotine addiction, industry marketing tactics, and long-term health consequences of tobacco use.

Feedback from school principals was overwhelmingly positive. “The materials were scientifically grounded yet accessible,” said one coordinator. “Students left the sessions asking real questions about why they see cigarette imagery in films.”

The campaign is funded entirely through philanthropic support and costs taxpayers nothing. All resources are available free of charge to any Greek school that requests them.