On Wednes­day, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Ni­Na Young Women's En­tre­pre­neur­ship Pro­gramme and the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty's Mar­i­an House Ed­u­ca­tion Project ben­e­fit­ted from char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions from CIBC First­Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank. Sup­port­ing the de­vel­op­ment of young men and women con­tin­ues to be a pri­or­i­ty for CIBC, ev­i­denced by its sup­port of these and var­i­ous oth­er char­i­ta­ble pro­grammes.

Re­ceiv­ing the do­na­tion for Mar­i­an House was Suzanne Dowdy, with Ako­sua Ed­wards ac­cept­ing for the Ni­Na Pro­gramme.

Es­tab­lished in 1987, Mar­i­an House is a de­vel­op­men­tal pro­gramme fo­cused on en­hanc­ing the lives of ado­les­cent males. It has suc­cess­ful­ly grad­u­at­ed a large num­ber of con­fi­dent, aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly qual­i­fied, skilled and re­spectable young men, who were able to rein­te­grate them­selves in­to and con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to main­stream so­ci­ety. For more than 400 young men, Mar­i­an House has rep­re­sent­ed a sec­ond-chance home, pro­vid­ing a re­prieve from a life of crime and pover­ty.

The Ni­Na Pro­gramme is sim­i­lar­ly aimed at up­lift­ing the prospects of young peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly young women. Since 2010, the pro­gramme has taught en­tre­pre­neur­ship skills in schools with the ob­jec­tive of cre­at­ing an en­tre­pre­neur­ial cul­ture and mind-set in young women.

CIBC First­Caribbean has es­tab­lished a rep­u­ta­tion of sup­port­ing youth and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment in T&T via its part­ner­ships with lo­cal and re­gion­al pro­grammes. The do­na­tions made to the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty and Ni­Na will pro­vide much-need­ed as­sis­tance with op­er­a­tional costs, en­abling the or­gan­i­sa­tions to bet­ter serve their com­mu­ni­ties.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of CIBC First­Caribbean's lo­cal op­er­a­tion, An­tho­ny Seer­aj, com­mend­ed the work of the or­gan­i­sa­tions and em­pha­sised the bank's com­mit­ment to ad­vanc­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment in T&T.

"Cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for un­der­priv­i­leged young women and men is in­stru­men­tal to aug­ment­ing our so­ci­ety. This is a prime fo­cus of CIBC First­Caribbean and we are com­mit­ted to rein­vest­ing in our com­mu­ni­ties" said Seer­aj.

"Part­ner­ing with or­gan­i­sa­tions such as Ni­Na and Liv­ing Wa­ters en­able us to play a role in em­pow­er­ing our young peo­ple to re­alise their great po­ten­tial and thus make their best pos­si­ble con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go."