Michelle Obama's Unsmoke Story

Currently I am reading the book written by Michelle Obama, “Becoming”. So far, it is just as it is told in Amazon: An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States. In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. 

In the book, Michelle Obama describes the early years of her marriage as she struggles to balance her work and family with her husband's fast-moving political career. She also talks about her perspective about her family’s smoking habit as well as her husband’s smoking habit and shares her actions in order to unsmoke her family.

WHO needs to answer WHY

The World Health Organization (WHO) released a new report on global tobacco but fails to acknowledge the robust science and innovation behind alternatives to smoking cigarettes.

The report, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies misses a critical scientific point: it is the burning of tobacco that produces the vast majority of the harmful chemicals that cause smoking-related diseases, not tobacco itself. Hundreds of millions of men and women who don’t quit stand to gain the most from less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. In fact, a global survey of 31,000 people in 31 countries found that 88 percent of respondents think smokers should have access to less harmful alternatives to cigarettes.

Unsmoke as a Sunday Evening Activity

On 23 June 2019 Sunday, just after watching an animation movie with my son and wife, as a Sunday evening activity before sleep, my son asked for a special request: drawing

All he asked for was to draw something that each of us can work on different paper and share with each other when the whole drawing was finalized.

As a father who is not good at drawing figures, I came up with an idea: Unsmoke

How I Unsmoked My Best Friend

Today, it is not easy to find and trust a person that you can start a close friendship. I have just a few friends like this and I thank God for surrounding me with these trustworthy people.

One of those nice people is Mehmet. I met with Mehmet in 2007. We were both tax assistants in PwC. He was from Ankara and I was from Izmir. Due to the fact that the trainings were held in İstanbul, we shared the same room in the hotel. Since then, we became close friends and shared many things. Despite the distances we have, we always feel close to each other. Time passed by, we had things to laugh and things to cry, the one thing that doesn’t change was sharing the good and the bad experiences. Then first he got married and became a father, and later on I got married and became a father, too. In the holidays and vacations, we got together and enjoyed. The tune that our wives and sons caught was so fine and we became like a big family. People say that good things do not last long. He and his wife had made a decision, and this decision affected their life. One of the changes by Mehmet’s side after this decision was starting to smoke.

Unsmoke Hero: Volkan Yorulmaz

Unsmoke Hero: Volkan Yorulmaz

“I’ve got one son and he’s got one life." For Volkan Yorulmaz, the prospect of fatherhood prompted his decision to unsmoke his life and home.

The Turkish senior tax analyst is one of hundreds of PMI employees to share their stories in our #Unsmoke campaign, which aims to tap into global efforts to rid the world of smoke.