The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has signaled its commitment to continued work with The National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA), as they continue to deliver drug education messages to the youth across the nation.

This from Director, Projects Department Mr. Daniel Best, who was at the time speaking at a ceremony last Thursday before accepting a poster from the NCSA, the poster was part of a “Bee Drug Free” Art and Poetry Competition held last year.

“For us, the people of the Caribbean Region are at the centre of all we do. Youth are the people of tomorrow on whom this Region will depend, and it is therefore in all our interests to nurture them in the best possible way as a means of securing the future of Caribbean people. We are therefore indebted to institutions such as the National Council for Substance Abuse that have committed their energies towards nurturing positive behaviours in our youth. We acknowledge and applaud your mission of “promoting sustained action for positive change in the fight against substance abuse and in the facilitation of drug education, prevention and drug-free lifestyles,” he noted.

He explained that the Bank has adopted a whole system’s approach that addresses the risk factors such as lack of education, and unemployment that predispose youth to the use of illegal drugs. Those interventions support young people in the targeted communities through literacy and numeracy training programmes, skills development training, adaptive life skills training and education on the dangers of engaging in illegal drug use.

The CDB’s sponsorship for the framing of some of the 62 posters received from the competition is not the first contribution to the NCSA.

The association between the two institutions dates back to 2013 when the Bank first contributed to the sponsorship of project SOFT – Safeguarding Our Future Today.

“We are happy to continue the association with this recent initiative of the Arts and Writing competition – “Be Drug-Free”. We appreciate the gesture of sharing one of the posters with us and we will position it in our Aftercare facility as a reinforcement to the children of CDB staff of our expectations of them. CDB is a child-friendly institution and we welcome the opportunity to extend our corporate responsibility to child-friendly activities,” he said.

NCSA Manager Betty Hunte in her remarks lauded the CDB for remaining true to its corporate responsibility, noting that the NCSA remains concerned with the activities of the youth especially now that many are left unsupervised.

She commended the bank for putting measures in place to facilitate employees with young children the opportunity to be at home and supervise young children, which she believes is a step in the right direction.

“As you said CDB has been with us since 2013, and you will be surprised that in 2021 fruits have been realised. We have just finished an almost 12-week online course, sessions at night for parents for those persons who have participated in the camp joined by teachers and am sure you will be happy to know that we even have participants from the region who heard about the programme and stayed the distance with us every week,” she said.

She also applauded the work of SignUp Inc. for the framing of the posters which she noted was perfectly and professionally done.