Batelco, the leading telecom service provider in Bahrain, as part of its corporate social responsibility has launched an enterprise for entrepreneurs in cooperation with Ebdaa Bank, a leading Bahrain-based bank.

The Batelco Portfolio for Limited Income Entrepreneurs aims to enable those less fortunate in the community in innovative and new ways, in order to improve their livelihood and lifestyle.

The portfolio has so far contributed to enabling the dreams of 15 Bahraini families by providing the necessary finance for starting small-size entrepreneurships that have increased the income of these families and improved their standard of living.

“Batelco has a strong belief that enterprising individuals in the community can enhance their development once they are provided with the required opportunities and resources,” said Ahmed Al Janahi, Batelco Group general manager media relations.

“Accordingly, in cooperation with the Ebdaa Bank, Batelco has been able to provide the necessary financial support, which contributed to realizing the dreams of these families, who have the required technical potential and talents but needed the necessary funding that otherwise can prevent the transformation of such potential and talents into small entrepreneurships,” he said.

"We appreciate this opportunity provided by the Ebdaa Bank, which will enable Batelco to further serve the community through its CSR portfolio. The Bank, through its capable and experienced management team, has made tremendous efforts to ensure the success of this partnership. We in Batelco are proud of this partnership which will be a beginning for other projects in the near future,” Al Janahi added.

Chief executive officer of Ebdaa Bank Dr Waheed Abdulla Al-Qassim said: “The bank has invested in this initiative through consideration of applications and ensuring the availability of success factors of such families and additionally through providing appropriate training in cooperation with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as well as close monitoring by lending specialists, who regularly provided advice to ensure their success.”

"This partnership appropriately falls within the bank's policy to achieve one of its main objectives of solidarity with national organizations to assist low-income citizens to engage in various new and innovative businesses to secure their own and coming generations' future, and to expand the middle class in order to ensure sustainable national development in line with the Bahrain Economic Vision 2003,” he added.

“We at Ebdaa Bank invite other private sector firms to follow the example of Batelco by investing part of their corporate social responsibility budgets in the form of micro-credit facilities to help limited-income citizens consistently improve their standard of living through small-size enterprises and to replace ‘charity culture’, which provides only temporary solutions for this category ,” concluded Dr Waheed. – TradeArabia News Service