One year after it was launched, Social Life Issues Guidance and Counselling Service is calling on public and private businesses to support its efforts to host workshops on drug prevention in workplaces in an effort to curb this and other social ills.
To facilitate this, the NGO urged its corporate sponsors to take a more active role in its programmes, revealing that plans are also in train to host community sessions aimed at educating its youths and adults about issues such as domestic violence and suicide. According to a press release, the group, which operates from its 193 Charlotte and Wellington streets, has a membership of over 20 volunteers who are qualified social workers and trained counsellors. They work with the Home Affairs, Culture, Youth and Sport ministries as well as private individuals and families.
The organisation, which started out as a ‘one-man drug prevention and education programme’ founded by John Greaves, will be hosting a week of activities to mark its anniversary. A former counsellor at the Salvation Army, Greaves told Stabroek News that he believed that there had to be a more proactive way in getting persons to stay off drugs and that formed the genesis of the organisation as well as the title of its TV programme “Nipping it in the Bud.”
He said he tested his idea by introducing the pilot to two schools and after getting a positive response he resigned from the Salvation Army and started selecting a formal body for the NGO.
Greaves currently serves as CEO and Chairman, along with an executive team of seven persons including his wife Fay and senior executive member Will Campbell, and a group of trustees. He said yesterday said that the group intends to streamline the activities of five secondary schools which facilitate regular drug prevention seminars, its fortnightly live television programme and seek membership in the drug information network which falls under the purview of the Home Affairs Ministry as well as membership into the Volunteerism Support Platform via the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.
