The Government of the Canary Islands reminds the youth the importance of ‘covering your mouth’ to Covid-19

Covering mouths – With your mouth covered you are healthier.

The campaign will take place in leisure areas and spaces for the youth in every island, and has as a goal reaching 11.500 youngsters.

“There is a general thought that the youngest sector of the society is the one following the less recommendations from the health authorities, mainly due to the low incidence of the disease between kids and teenagers. However, it is very important to inform and make them aware that they can highly transmit the virus. That is what we desire: raise awareness, before punishing. We do not wish to tell them off, we want them to comprehend the message”, said the Councillor for Social Rights, Equality, Diversity and Youth, Noemi Santana, during the launch ceremony of the ‘Tapando bocas’ campaign which took place in Las Arenas shopping centre, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, with the attendance of the Youth Director-General, Laura Fuentes.

According to the data, Canarias registers 2.574 positive cases, mostly between the young population being asymptomatic or having mild symptoms. In fact, “65% of the current cases in Canarias are of people under 40 years of age”, clarified Santana.

How is the campaign going to develop?

A team of promoters formed by 18 men and women will go all over the island during the month of August to talk face to face to the youth. These promoters are between 20 and 30 years old, they have socio-cultural animation or sanitary education and have excellent communication skills.

The teams will work in pairs in places with a high concentration of people between 15 and 30 years old (example: Las Arenas in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, shopping areas of Santa Cruz, Valle Gran Rey and San Sebastian of La Gomera, Los Llanos and Santa Cruz, La Restinga and Frontera or Las Rotondas and Puerto del Rosario, Charco de San Ginés or Biosfera en Lanzarote).

“Our goal is to reach 11.500 people”, pointed out the Youth Director-General, Laura Fuentes, who insisted that “the information that the youth receives nowadays is crucial to raise awareness and get satisfactory results for the sake of everyone’s health, moreover, if we keep in mind that Canarias is at the head of the autonomous communities with the highest proportion of young people, with a 17% of the population being between 15 and 29 years old”.

Distribution of 5.000 masks

For the ‘Tapando bocas’ campaign, the Youth Department has ordered for its distribution 5.000 masks that will be distributed among the people who contacts them. It was specified that the masks were ordered to Guayarmina Textil company, a company from the Canary Islands with more than 40 years of history which belongs to the ‘Consume Canario’ program, and is together with a Special Employment Centre, where more than 75% of the personnel have a recognised disability of at least 33% and a high percentage are women.