​​Commercial International Bank – Egypt (CIB) is always keen on sponsoring projects and initiatives that generate long-term, sustainable impact on the Egyptian society. This then explains the importance of the Bank's sponsorship of the "Beena" initiative that was launched by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, mid last year. CIB-Egypt aims not only to support projects that will develop and improve the community , but also ensures the continuity and sustainability of its results and positive impact.

CIB-Egypt is the main partner and funder of "Beena" that was initiated by Dr. Ghada Wally, the Minister of Social Solidarity and Mr. Hisham Ezz Al-Arab, Chairman and Managing Director of CIB-Egypt , with the ultimate goal of activating the voluntary role of youth and the community in order to support the development and quality control of social care centers, based on their expertise and the field practices.

As per the follow-up of the initiative's results over the past six months, the list of positive outcomes included attracting roughly 16,000 followers on the initiative's social media channel namely Facebook, receiving 3,000 volunteer requests, out of which 117 volunteers were selected and trained in the governorates of Greater Cairo and Alexandria and after the training 111 volunteers were accommodated in 63 orphanages. Moreover, four workshops were implemented to develop the skills of volunteers, in addition to training 15 special volunteers and enrolling them into the "Train the Trainer" program, who will in turn pass on their expertise to other volunteers across Egypt.

Furthermore, Beena witnessed the collaboration of eight different organizations to implement the initiative objectives and realize the targeted quality standards of social institutions through passing on the quality guidelines to the volunteers and organizations and authorize these standards as the evaluation tool for each social care center. Moreover, this initiative adopts the positive, effective activation of the government's general strategy through the participation of all parties and the experts to support the concept of social responsibility in a transparent way. 

Furthermore, the initiative received a remarkable number of applications within the volunteer forms programs, forms were collected through a series of campaigns held at the well-known sporting clubs and universities, including 648 forms from Al-Ahli Club, 435 forms from the Gezira Club, 725 forms from Al-Ahli Club Nasr City branch and 307 forms from Heliopolis Sporting Club, in addition to 315 forms collected from the Cairo University and 200 forms from the South Valley University in Upper Egypt.

Speaking of the 2016 Q1 plan, the second phase of the initiative is planned to target 30% of the orphanages and elderly foster homes located in perse areas of Egypt, noting that the first phase covered 30% of Egypt's orphanages, mainly in Greater Cairo and Alexandria. In this regard, programs to support and develop the role of care centers will be set, targeting the most needy geographical areas first, that are designated based on the projected needs. This also includes the continuous follow-up of each care center, assessment of its development in terms of education, training, awareness and financial support, besides setting proper plan to attract a decent number of volunteers to implement the required tasks. Moreover, they will contribute to the implementation of internal initiatives in cooperation with local civil society organizations to fulfill the needs of care centers based on the designated programs.