CIBC First­Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank (CIBC First­Caribbean) re­cent­ly made a sub­stan­tial do­na­tion to Youth Busi­ness Trinidad and To­ba­go (YBTT).It was the third an­nu­al do­na­tion out­lined un­der a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) the bank signed in 2008 with Youth Busi­ness In­ter­na­tion­al (YBI), a net­work of youth busi­ness pro­grammes, to so­lid­i­fy its com­mit­ment to en­cour­ag­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship among young peo­ple in the re­gion as a means of com­bat­ing pover­ty and un­em­ploy­ment.

In T&T, YBI is rep­re­sent­ed by the ac­cred­it­ed pro­gramme YBTT. With the sup­port of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, YBTT helps young peo­ple be­tween the ages of 18-35 to work for them­selves by pro­vid­ing ac­cess to busi­ness loans and men­tor­ing. CIBC First­Caribbean Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Du­ane Hink­son, who made the pre­sen­ta­tion to YBTT on be­half of the bank, said they were hap­py for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to lend as­sis­tance where it is so great­ly need­ed.