From Ameinfo.com

The Citi Foundation, Citi’s philanthropic arm, recently extended $155,000 in grant funds to four selective Lebanese institutions in support of youth education, entrepreneurship and microfinance causes.

This included:

• American University of Beirut (AUB): Through a series of workshops targeting 50 Lebanese family businesses, Citi Foundation and the Olayan School of Business (OSB) will deliver a Family Business Initiative designed to provide a regional knowledge base for family business leaders, managers and operators to build capacity in critical challenge areas such as firm growth, succession planning, governance, and financing.

• Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Lebanon: Renewing Citi’s support for YMCA Lebanon to deliver the Citi Micro-entrepreneurship Awards (CMA) program which seeks to promote Micro-enterprise and to increase awareness of micro-entrepreneurs’ financial services needs. The CMA program has been financed by Citi since 2005, and has, so far, benefitted more than 250 micro-entrepreneurs through cash grants.

• Injaz Lebanon: a grant to Injaz Lebanon (affiliate of Junior Achievement) to execute the Company Program, an entrepreneurship program which will train 500 high school students on acquiring entrepreneurial skills. Competing students create their own ‘companies’ and acquire key concepts of corporate structures, operations, capitalization, clients, pricing, sales, and company liquidation techniques.

• International College (IC): Preparing 170 IC students to sit for the SAT exam, a prerequisite for university admission.

“We aim to execute an all-round community development program in Lebanon and to enable youth and entrepreneurs alike to realize their full potential,” said Antoine Maroun, General Manager of Citibank Lebanon. “The work of the Citi Foundation is complemented by various levels of support and involvement by our staff namely in the area of volunteering and board involvement.”

Citi’s presence in Lebanon dates back to the 1950s. Since re-establishing its fully licensed branch in Beirut over fifteen years ago, the Bank has evolved into an active corporate citizen, with a particular interest in supporting financial literacy and education.

This latest series of grants follows a decade of support for social and economic development programs in Lebanon by Citi exceeding $600,000. Between 2001 and 2010, the bank’s efforts focused on providing scholarships reaching over 200 university level students in addition to extending grants to NGO’s investing in youth education programs, microfinance and housing for low-income families.