Podgorica 22.11.2017- American Chamber of Commerce together with its member companies organized Thanksgiving Charity Cocktail second year in a row.

Thanksgiving is American national holiday, representing an important date for those who wish to express gratitude towards family, friends, community, as well as for achievements. This year, AmCham member companies, expressed their gratitude towards the community, by organizing donation initiative with an aim to improve social inclusion of children and youth with disabilities from thirteen Public institutions Day Care Centers for children and youth with disabilities from town across Montenegro.

Day Care Centers recently came up with specially designed social network www.socijalnainkluzija.me which would give these children and youth the possibility to communicate in a way their peers do. This social network has modules which translate text into speech and vice versa and enables persons with hearing and visual impairments to overcome communication barrier.

Donations made by AmCham member companies supported the procurement of computer equipment needed for the social network to be enabled in thirteen Day Care Centers.

Donation initiative has been supported by following companies: Telenor fondacija, Hoffmann la Roche, Coca-Cola HBC Montenegro, Integrated EE Holdings (Capital Plaza), Erste banka, Čikom, Addiko banka, UNIQA osiguranje, Čelebić, Telekom, Industrija piva i sokova „Trebjesa“, Zapad banka, S&T, Societe Generale Montenegro banka, Trend Korali, Karanović/Nikolić, Lovćen osiguranje, MonteCredit, Hipotekarna banka, Fidelity Consulting, BDK Legal, Montenegro Transfers, Harrisons, DHL, Bayview Investments and Teknoxgroup.

During the charity cocktail held in the hotel Verde, the guests were addressed by : H.E. Margaret En Uehara, the ambassador of the United States of America in Montenegro, Ms. Katarina Bulatović, AmCham President, dr Marko Miročević, AmCham Executive Director and Ms. Svetlana Dujović, Director of Public Institution Day Care Centre for children and youth with disabilities, Pljevlja.

The ambassador of the USA in Montenegro, H.E. Margaret En Uehara, noted that this donation initiative by American Chamber of Commerce and member companies, is an excellent example of business community making positive impact in the lives of persons with disabilities, adding that all of us must support them by raising awareness of their complete inclusion in Montenegrin society.

Uehara concluded that this way  AmCham and its members have shown their commitment to the wider community.

The President of AmCham Board of Directors, Ms. Katarina Bulatović, said that: ῞To be a responsible and conscious member of the community is of crucial importance for the development of each society. She added that ῞we can always count on our members’ responsibility because they are true representatives of socially responsible businesses in Montenegro῞. There are many examples of this, one of them, of course, is the support to this donation initiative, concluded Bulatović.

Dr Marko Miročević, AmCham Executive Director, expressed his gratitude towards the support of the US Embassy as well as the trust and commitment of Chambers’ companies, concluding that their mutual work is essential for AmCham’s  success in its mission to improve the business community.

Ms. Svetlana Dujović, the Director of Public Institution for children and youth with disabilities in Pljevlja, expressed her gratitude towards American Chamber of Commerce and its companies which participated in the donation action. She noted that this donation is important because persons with disabilities must be provided with equal access to all aspects of life and added that everyone has to understand that implementation of their rights is a basic human rights issue, not social care issue.

American Chamber of Commerce and its companies will continue to promote corporate social responsibility in the following year through the Committee for Corporate Social Responsibility.