Citibank Chief Country Officer Trinidad Mitchell De Silva hands over donation from Citi Foundation to UWTT Chair Ian Benjamin.
Citi and UWTT have been long standing partners working for social impact in risk and vulnerable communities in Trinidad and Tobago. Citi is proud to partner with United Way, innovating within the new norm to benefit communities all over the country.
As part of its COVID-19 Response, Citi and Citi Foundation donated more than $1.5 million to COVID relief efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean. A portion of these funds, coordinated by United Way Guatemala, has been made available to United Way Trinidad and Tobago to assist with its efforts locally.
With this grant, the goal is to support families affected by the COVID-19 crisis with food and essential supplies as part of the Response and Recovery Programme of United Way Trinidad and Tobago launched on April 1, 2020.
UWTT, with the support of NGO partners and ten Primary School Communities in their Building Bridges to Success Programme, have been working to identify families with children in vulnerable communities throughout the country, who have lost their job due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Citi Foundation’s grant will support over 300 families during the month of August. This will bring the total to nearly one thousand cash transfers and food vouchers disbursed to families from May to August 2020 from the UWTT Programme. Dr. Jennifer Sancho, Chief Executive Officer UWTT “thanks to Citi for their confidence in our partnership. A simple shift to using grocery vouchers for support provides the families flexibility with their choices so that they can tailor the use of the voucher to complement what they may be able to secure from other sources, e.g. food hamper distributions.”
Mitchell De Silva, Citi Country Officer for Trinidad & Tobago said, “This pandemic has challenged us all to deepen our commitment to serving our local communities and customers. Citi is supporting those immediately impacted by the crisis and we are confident we will all emerge from this situation together and stronger”.
