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Friday, July 11, 2025

CIBC invests US$1.425m in UWI

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20140119

Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos–A part­ner­ship forged 11 years ago be­tween two lead­ing re­gion­al en­ti­ties has seen CIBC First­Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank con­tribut­ing over US$1.425 mil­lion to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

The funds have gone to sup­port the ed­u­ca­tion of the re­gion's young peo­ple, with a spe­cial em­pha­sis on de­vel­op­ment in ar­eas such as re­search in bank­ing and fi­nance and is­sues af­fect­ing Caribbean en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and fi­nan­cial sup­port for young peo­ple pur­su­ing a course in high­er ed­u­ca­tion at one of the UWI's three cam­pus­es.

This long-stand­ing part­ner­ship was re­newed for an­oth­er three years when CEO of CIBC First­Caribbean and chair­man of the ComTrust Foun­da­tion, Rik Parkhill, and pro vice chan­cel­lor and prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Cave Hill, Pro­fes­sor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les, signed an­oth­er mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MOU) re­cent­ly at the bank's head of­fice at War­rens, St Michael. The ComTrust Foun­da­tion is the bank's char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tion es­tab­lished to over­see its cor­po­rate giv­ing pro­gramme.

CIBC First­Caribbean is ex­treme­ly proud of this long-stand­ing part­ner­ship, which goes be­yond the pro­vi­sion of a spon­sor­ship cheque, and sees the two en­ti­ties work­ing to­geth­er in a num­ber of projects through­out the life of each MOU. This is the fourth MOU be­tween the two en­ti­ties, the first be­ing signed in 2003 in Ja­maica.

Through the cur­rent three-year MOU CIBC First­Caribbean and UWI will col­lab­o­rate across four ar­eas: the ad­vance­ment of knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing of is­sues af­fect­ing busi­ness, trade and fi­nan­cial ser­vices in the Caribbean con­text; the sup­port and de­vel­op­ment of UWI stu­dents from around the re­gion; the en­hance­ment of re­search in bank­ing and fi­nance at UWI; and the joint pur­suit of mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial busi­ness and cor­po­rate im­age ini­tia­tives.

Spe­cif­ic ini­tia­tives borne out of the col­lab­o­ra­tion in the new MOU in­clude a grant of US$15,000 to sup­port a quar­ter­ly busi­ness fo­rum or­gan­ised by UWI to dis­cuss key is­sues fac­ing re­gion­al economies and fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor; and fund­ing a schol­ar­ship pro­gramme for UWI stu­dents val­ued at US$112,500.Each year, through the CIBC First­Caribbean's fund­ing, schol­ar­ships val­ued at US$2500 each are award­ed to 15 un­der­grad­u­ate stu­dents en­rolled at the UWI.

More than 180 schol­ar­ships have been award­ed over the life of the bank's 11-year part­ner­ship with UWI. For the first time this year, the MOU al­so in­cludes pro­vi­sion for the award of a schol­ar­ship to a stu­dent read­ing for a post­grad­u­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

Sup­port is al­so giv­en to stu­dent en­tre­pre­neurs with seed cap­i­tal of US$45,000 through UWI's Stu­dent En­tre­pre­neur­ial Em­pow­er­ment De­vel­op­ment (SEED) project. The pro­gramme equips stu­dents with knowl­edge and prac­ti­cal skills in en­tre­pre­neur­ship, sev­er­al of whom have gone on­to busi­ness suc­cess and fur­ther ac­claim.

The bank spon­sors an an­nu­al com­pe­ti­tion in which stu­dents en­rolled in SEED present the busi­ness plans for their com­pa­nies and are award­ed cash prizes that go to­wards their busi­ness­es.Fur­ther­more, re­search on is­sues im­por­tant to bank­ing and fi­nan­cial ser­vices will be sup­port­ed through a grant of US$82,500. This grant will be award­ed on a com­pet­i­tive ba­sis to re­searchers on all three cam­pus­es of the UWI with re­sults be­ing pub­lished as well as shared at a re­search sym­po­sium.

The MOU al­so makes pro­vi­sion to con­tin­ue the bank's fi­nan­cial sup­port of the an­nu­al CIBC First­Caribbean Frank Wor­rell Memo­r­i­al Lec­ture with an an­nu­al grant of US$5,000. There is al­so pro­vi­sion for se­nior em­ploy­ees of the bank to serve as guest lec­tur­ers in their field of ex­per­tise at the UWI's three cam­pus­es, and for CIBC First­Caribbean's sup­port of the UWI's grad­u­ate place­ment pro­gramme.


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