Our Employees in the Community

GSKA encourages and rewards employee participation in community-related programs or fundraising activities that aim to improve health and wellbeing in the local community.

GSK helps keep the Youth off the Streets

In August, Stacia Harper and Melissa Lukin were invited, as representatives of the GlaxoSmithKline Zyban sales team, to attend Father Chris Riley’s Youth off the Streets Open Day.

The Zyban sales team was awarded $2,000 following strong recruitment to the Zyban patient support program which they donated to the Dunlea Alcohol and Other Drug Youth Service (DAYS) - a program run by Youth off the Streets.

“Stacia and I were able to experience first hand the difference Fr Riley has made to these young people’s life and every bit of money the organisation gets really does make a difference to these kids,” said Melissa Lukin about the Open Day.

DAYS caters to people aged between 14-18 years who want help to change their levels and patterns of drug use. DAYS helps young people realise that their addiction will ruin their lives if they don’t take control.

The Zyban team felt that the service shared similar objectives to the Zyban patient support program, which provides education and treatment for tobacco addiction.

The major addictions that DAYS is dealing with at the moment are marijuana and amphetamines; the sessions are on Mondays as this is the first day after the weekend when most drug taking and binge drinking occurs. The young people are from the Dunlea area and come to the facility for the day.

“Some of the children had come from homes of low socio-economics, where there had been drug use and/or domestic violence and others had come from regular families where they just didn’t fit in with the ‘normal’ life,” said Melissa.

If anyone is interested in more information about Fr Riley’s Youth off the Streets program please contact Melissa Lukin or Stacia Harper and they will send out a copy of the information received at the Open Day.

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