SOCIAL Life Issues (SLI), a local consultancy, guidance and counselling service, has been hailed as a brilliant example of a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that has the potential to offer strong support for the implementation of at least two action areas on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), those being ‘sale of tobacco products to minors’ and ‘education and communication’.

This is the view expressed by institutions that have bought into and enlisted into the programme. The organisation, launched on May 25, 2013, targets youths of school-age and has a focus on drug prevention education, while also addressing other social issues such as tobacco smoking, illegal drugs, alcohol, gambling, suicide, domestic violence and teenage pregnancy.
Its vision is to provide assistance to society through information and education on the named social dilemmas that have a great propensity towards destruction of the individual and family.

MENTORING CHILDREN
The organisation conducts a drug prevention education programme in five private secondary schools so far, mentoring more than 200 children. The schools on board are: Josel Seventh Day Adventist Academy; Chase’s Education Foundation; Institute of Professional Education (IPE) and two branches of the Institute of Business Education (IBE) at Lusignan and Enmore, East Coast Demerara.
SLI hosts a fortnightly television programme, titled, ‘Nipping it in the Bud’. As the name of the programme implies, the organisation is taking a proactive approach to substance abuse and holds the notion that ‘prevention is better than cure’. Therefore, the organisation advocates the placement of greater emphasis on drug prevention education, contending that if youths could be reached with the message of ‘prevention’ and effectively worked with, then the burden of ‘drug rehabilitation’ would be made lighter, or in effect, will be less of a burden to society.
Over the last year-and-a-half, SLI has made a positive impact on reducing the number of young people falling prey to tobacco and narcotics.

TOBACCO ZERO-TOLERANCE
And since it is established that drug addiction invariably starts with smoking tobacco, the organisation has a deeply entrenched ‘zero-tolerance’ for tobacco smoking, which forms part of their education process and value system.
Social Life Issues is comprised of a team of professionally qualified, experienced and practising social workers, counsellors, a psychologist and a doctor of medicine, among other professional disciplines.
Director, Mr. John Greaves, a graduate of the University of Guyana, brings to the task, 32 years of experience as a social worker, as well as several years as a soldier in the Guyana Defence Force and Corps Sergeant Major within the Salvation Army. He is a stickler for discipline. For several years, Greaves has also been a counsellor with the Salvation Army’s Drug Rehabilitation Programme, until 2013, but remains a Corps Sergeant Major with responsibility for the East La Penitence Worship Corps in Georgetown.
The Salvation Army conducts the sole drug rehabilitation programme in Guyana, which has won the respect and support of the Government of Guyana and over the last eight years, attracting a yearly grant which now stands at $10M to assist the recovery programme. And more recently Government made a donation of $16M for the refurbishing of the building that houses the programme. That building, just completed, is due to be unveiled and declared open before the end of December.
Commenting on the morale of the SLI Guidance and Counselling Service, Greaves in his typical military style declared: “The reason we are so different, is that we are not only theoretical but very practical. We have the human resources needed for the task at hand, who are very experienced and qualified, so that we are well poised to make an impact on saving the nation’s most valuable resource – the human resource.”

(by Shirley Thomas)