The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Leeds, Councillors Graham and Pat Latty, recently met representatives from different organisations involved in the Bambisanani partnership which co-ordinates charitable work in rural South Africa.
The charity started out in life as a partnership between St Mary’s school in Menston and Mnyakanya school in northern Kwazulu Natal, involving student exchanges around leadership through sport. Since that time, the work of the charity has broadened out to involve the placement of trainee teachers from Leeds Trinity University and programmes run by the University of Leeds which have involved a group of thirty South African high school students being taught how to ride and maintain bikes. This initiative is helping to make the journey to school safer for many students, particularly girls.
During the meeting at Leeds Civic Hall, David Geldart from the Bambisanani partnership presented the Lord Mayor with a book which looks back over the 12 year history of the charity.
Anybody wanting to find out more should contact David Geldart, former teacher at St Mary’s Menston and founder of the Bambisanani partnership: D.Geldart@bambisananipartnership.org