X-HALE Youth Awards

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The X-HALE Youth Awards are a chance for groups that have taken part in the X-HALE Short Film Competition to showcase their work, get recognition and share their messages about the nasty effects of smoking with other young people. It’s a great day out with awesome music, entertainment and food.

Big screen premiere

As part of this national event, participating groups are invited to watch their film or project on the big screen each year. A panel of judges review the films and projects and prizes are awarded under different categories. See previous award-winning movies which were honoured at the X-HALE Youth Awards.

X-HALE Online and Community Campaign

The ‘X-HALE Online and Community Campaign’ is an opportunity for participating groups to use and develop their advocacy and communication skills to maximise the reach of the messages in their film among young people online and in their community in the run up to the X-HALE Youth Awards. Films are uploaded to the Irish Cancer Society YouTube Channel and groups are enncouraged to share the messages in their film as much as possible through social media, websites, blogs, news articles, radio interviews, screenings and awareness raising events. The Online Award at the X-HALE Youth Awards goes to the entry with the most views on the playlist at the end of the “voting period”. The Best Community Campaign Award recognises the group that the judges decide put the most impressive effort into promoting their film and raising awareness about the impact of tobacco in their community. 

Note: YouTube's views algorithm does not include multiple views from the same PC or IP address.

#TheXGeneration

Smoking rates are going down among young people in Ireland, and with continuous effort we hope we can reach the Government’s target of a Tobacco Free Ireland by 2025.

In our latest strategy, Towards a Future without Cancer 2013-2017, the Irish Cancer Society set a goal of reducing smoking rates among young people to 7% by 2017.

Latest figures indicate that we are on track to reach this goal among 10-17 year olds overall, but rates are higher in some communities and among older young people. There is still more work to do. We want young people to drive the movement towards establishing Irelands first smoke free generation through your participation in X-HALE. Learn more About X-HALE.

#TheXGeneration unite



In 2015, we decided that we needed a hashtag slogan to open the youth smoking prevention and tobacco endgame conversation out to the digital space.

Young people voted on the X-HALE Facebook page and decided that #TheXGeneration summed up the spirit of X-HALE and the movement towards Irelands first smoke free generation.

Groups used the hashtag on their X-HALE social media posts and this has been our tagline ever since. Check out the X-HALE Story So Far to see the #TheXGeneration in action.

Be part of  #TheXGeneration

We’re calling on you to join #TheXGeneration and be Ireland’s first smoke free generation. If you want to join the conversation, have your say or show your commitment to being part of the movement, get involved with X-HALE, use the #TheX-Generation hashtag on Twitter and Instagram, like X-HALE on Facebook and follow our blog on Tumblr.

Watch and share the X-HALE 2019 playlist of short films.