Sean Nero

Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd (RBL) will in­vest a whop­ping $100 mil­lion over the next five years, as part of its dri­ve to im­prove the lives of so­cial­ly dis­tressed and dis­abled peo­ple in T&T. David Du­lal-White­way, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor at RBL, made the dis­clo­sure at the launch of Phase II of the bank's Pow­er to Make A Dif­fer­ence pro­gramme, held at the Casablan­ca Room lo­cat­ed at Movi­eTowne, In­vaders Bay, Wood­brook, on Wednes­day. Nine­teen groups and or­gan­i­sa­tions now stand to ben­e­fit from RBL's huge in­vest­ment in so­cial ini­tia­tive de­signed to re­store hope and main­tain sta­bil­i­ty in so­ci­ety. He said the mon­ey would fo­cus on youth de­vel­op­ment, pover­ty al­le­vi­a­tion, holis­tic health­care and the dis­abled in T&T.

The fig­ure rep­re­sents an al­most 100 per cent in­crease from the $52 mil­lion in­ject­ed in­to Phase I of the pro­gramme in No­vem­ber 2003.

Go­ing For­ward: The Next Five Years of Mak­ing and Dif­fer­ence is the theme for Phase II of the project which cov­ers 2009-2013. Du­lal-White­way ex­plained how the mon­ey would be used un­der the bank's am­bi­tious plan.

He said the bank would in­vest:

$30 mil­lion on pro­grammes that use ed­u­ca­tion, sports and the arts as their foun­da­tion;

$20 mil­lion for the con­struc­tion of fa­cil­i­ties for the pro­vi­sion of care and teach­ing of dis­abled chil­dren;

$15 mil­lion for health­care and, in par­tic­u­lar, can­cer care;

$3 mil­lion to the Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties;

$1 mil­lion to the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands' As­so­ci­a­tion Ju­nior Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion; and

$1 mil­lion to the Can­cer So­ci­ety of T&T.

Say­ing that the glob­al fi­nan­cial melt­down was enough to cause RBL to shirk it's so­cial cor­po­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, Du­lal-White­way said the bank in­tend­ed to spruce up fa­cil­i­ties at the Diego Mar­tin-based Christ Child Con­va­les­cent Home, which is man­aged by the Cor­pus Christi Carmelite Sis­ters, while the Adult Lit­er­a­cy Tu­tors As­so­ci­a­tion could now con­duct lit­er­a­cy cours­es for drug ad­dicts.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the Laven­tille-based Love­un­til Foun­da­tion could now forge ahead with plans for a drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre for young ad­dicts to help them re­sume a drug-free life.

Ex­pand­ing its fo­cus on health­care, RBL has height­ened its com­mit­ment to can­cer care with the con­struc­tion of the Vi­tas House in St James, for ter­mi­nal­ly ill can­cer pa­tients, who would re­ceive pal­lia­tive care free of charge. And RBL branch­es across the coun­try are to be re­fit­ted to bet­ter serve the dis­abled. Oth­er pri­or­i­ty projects for the bank in­clude cater­ing to those spe­cial needs of chil­dren with autism and dyslex­ia. Du­lal-White­way said: "Clear­ly, this is not a sim­ple un­der­tak­ing. "We could have opt­ed for an eas­i­er, less ar­du­ous as­sign­ment, but as every­one here will agree, easy is not the way to go when you chal­lenge your­self to leave the world a bet­ter place than you found it," he said.

Re­cip­i­ents

Adult Lit­er­a­cy Tu­tors As­so­ci­a­tion.

Autis­tic So­ci­ety of T&T.

Christ Child Con­va­les­cent Home.

Gyaan Jy­oti Man­dali Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

Hap­py Haven School.

La­dy Ho­choy Home.

Love­un­til Foun­da­tion.

Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons With Dis­abil­i­ties.

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion Ju­nior Car­ni­val.

Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (School Bus Pro­gramme).

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Baal Vikaas Vi­har.

Simean­na Home for the El­der­ly.

St Mary's Col­lege (School Bus Pro­gramme).

St An­drew's School.

The Dyslex­ia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T.

The Life Cen­tre.

T&T Can­cer So­ci­ety Hos­pice.