An asthmatic 15-year-old Japanese boy single-handedly convinced a city council in Japan to ban smoking in public.
Yuhta Ohishi was nine years old when he had a terrible asthma attack after inhaling a cigarette smoke from a man walking next to him on the streets of Shizuoka City in Japan .
After surviving that asthma attack, Ohishi, at a very young age, studied the effects of cigarette smoking and second-hand smoking.
Ohishi then started the biggest fight of his life: "I wanted to get rid of second-hand smoke ni Shizuoka ."
Ohishi tirelessly wrote reports and petitions to city officials urging them to craft a legislation that will ban smoking on the streets of the Shizuoka .
"Initially, he was ostracized by the local community, but he persisted," the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region said in a statement.
Soon after, Ohishi got public support, which boosted his lobbying before the city council.
In 2005, after a three-year struggle, the city council banned smoking on the streets of Shizuoka.
"You can just imagine how, single-handedly, a young boy of 10, 11, 12 would be lobbying and presenting his case to the city council of Shizuoka, and successfully convincing the city council to pass the legislation," said Dr. Linda Milan, WHO director for Building Health Communities and Population.
Ohishi flew from Japan to the Philippines and received the World No Tobacco Day Award from WHO Western Pacific Region in a simple ceremony in Malate, Manila , on Friday.
The special recognition award was handed to Ohishi in time for the WHO's celebration of the World No Tobacco Day.
Ohishi was the youngest in 19 years to receive such award, Milan said.
"Yutha is an inspiration to young people as well as to adults," Dr. Shigeru Omi, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific.
Milan said that aside from the award, Ohishi also received a personal letter from WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan.
Meanwhile, WHO Western Pacific also announced other World No Tobacco prize winners. They were: Cambodia Movement for Health, Beijing Vice Mayor Ding Xiangyang, Smoke-Free Luang Prabang of Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Vietnam 's Hanoi School of Public Health.