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A Wharfedale secondary school which is raising money for African schoolchildren is celebrating after receiving a £2,500 cash boost from a Manchester based firm.

St Mary's Secondary School in Menston formed a partnership with Mnyakanya School in Kwa Zulu Natal a couple of years ago and has since raised money to boost resources at the school, sponsor students and promote leadership skills and sport among students.

Last week Cardinal Maritime' a leading UK consolidator specialising in services to and from the Far East, Middle East, Indian Sub-Continent, Mediterranean, Africa, USA and Canada pledged their support to the partnership by donating the large sum of cash.

The firm took an interest in the school's work after shipping resources from St Mary's to South Africa free of charge.

Staff were so impressed with the school's dedication and work at the school that they then decided to donate funds.

Managing director of the company Mr Andrew Smithurst said: "We are very pleased to be associated with the Bambisanani Partnership and hope this will be a long-term relationship. We originally got involved by sending some shipments to the school free of charge to help and we wanted to work closer together in this project. After seeing a presentation and meeting the students from St Mary's I can see the money will be very well spent.

"As a successful business, we like to return a percentage of our profits to charities to help local and overseas projects. Cardinal has its own office in South Africa so we felt this was a good partnership for all of us. We are hopeful this will be a long-term partnership between the school and our company."

Mnyakanya School serves a desperately poor community in the Nkandla region where one in three of the adult population is HIV positive. There is 90 percent unemployment in the area and 60 per cent of adults are illiterate.

In the midst of all this is the school which, with the help of St Mary's, is giving children in the area the opportunity of an education.

The school has few resources and class sizes are in excess of 60. Most children walk two hours each way to school each day, such is their desire to learn. Sadly many children cannot afford to go to school.

St Mary's Sixth Form students have recently returned from working at the school where they coached sport, taught other curriculum areas and provided training for teachers and sports coaches.

So far more than £5,000 has been raised to buy essential equipment for the school and in addition to this, 20 AIDS orphans are being sponsored into school.

Assistant head teacher at St Mary's David Geldart said: "We all have so much to gain from this partnership. We need to do more and I am particularly keen to establish annual exchange visits of students to South Africa and from South Africa.

"Cardinal Maritime has been very supportive of our work by shipping, at no cost, a considerable amount of resources to South Africa to support Mnyakanya School.

"This further support from Cardinal Maritime is absolutely fantastic and will help us make even more of a difference over the next 12 months."

10:50am Thursday 22nd May 2008

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