First Caribbean gives to hurricane ravaged islands in the region

~~Adz:Right~~ Bridgetown, Barbados, November 01, 2008 – Haiti, The Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Jamaica have received over US$150,000 for disaster relief following the passage of several severe weather systems in recent months, and the significant recovery efforts needed to return these countries to a normal state.

Jamaica will be allocating the funds to assist with repairs to schools, senior citizens’ and children’s homes and affected farming communities. Funds for Turks and Caicos Islands will be administered by the National Disaster Relief Fund and the Red Cross, while the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will oversee funds to assist with the rebuilding of Morton Salt located on Great Inagua.  

The Bank through its charity, the FirstCaribbean International Comtrust Foundation Limited recently teamed up with the Barbados Red Cross Society to assist with the Haiti Hurricane Appeal. The Bank donated US$25,000 to Haiti to assist with general recovery efforts.

During a special presentation to the Red Cross, Comtrust Director Dawne Williams described the situation in Haiti as heartbreaking, “This donation is therefore from the hearts of all of us at FirstCaribbean”. Dawne also observed that in its six years of operation, FirstCaribbean has made disaster relief one of the main priorities of its social responsibility agenda. “The Comtrust budgets annually for hurricane relief, and even though Haiti lies outside of the geographic area covered by FirstCaribbean, we decided that we could not ignore the situation there.  They are our Caribbean brothers and sisters and we see this as no better way of fulfilling our responsibility to our Caribbean communities”.

Director General of the local chapter of the Red Cross, Edmond Bradshaw, noted that the first shipment of basic materials such as tarpaulins had already arrived in Haiti.  He explained that cash donations were preferred in light of the difficulty of shipping items from port to port which, in some cases, did not reach the destination intended. 

The Barbados Red Cross Society was founded in 1960 as part of the British Red Cross in 1966.  The Red Cross is one of the leading agencies engaged in disaster response with over 500 volunteers locally.

The FirstCaribbean Comtrust Foundation administers the bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility programmes, and is administered by a seven member Board of Trustees which is currently chaired by the bank’s Managing Director for The Bahamas, Sharon Brown.

ENDS

About FirstCaribbean International Bank

FirstCaribbean is a major Caribbean bank offering a full range of market-leading financial services in Corporate Banking, Retail Banking, Wealth Management, Credit Cards, Treasury and Capital Markets.  Formed in 2002, it is a member of the CIBC Group and is the largest, regionally-listed bank in the English and Dutch speaking Caribbean, with assets of over US$12 billion and market capitalization of US$3 billion.  The Bank has over 3,500 staff; over 100 branches, banking centres, and offices in 17 regional markets, and serves 800,000 active accounts. 

Every year from 2004 to 2007, FirstCaribbean was named “Best Emerging Market Bank” by Global Finance magazine of New York. Since inception, the bank has also received several industry awards for excellence from, Euromoney Magazine, Latin Finance Magazine, and The Banker magazine.

Through the FirstCaribbean International Comtrust Foundation, FirstCaribbean dedicates 1% of its annual prior year profits (pre-tax) to Community Partnership in the countries where it operates.
 
More information about FirstCaribbean can be found at: www.firstcaribbeanbank.com