THE ACHIEVEMENTS of young people and the help they are giving to others were celebrated with an event organised by Aireborough Rotary.

Staff and students from Horsforth School and St Mary's, Menston were at the meeting, staged by the Rotary club's youth service.

Catherine Chattoe, the Bambisanani project leader, together with pupils Ewan Copsey and Pauline Hall brought members up to date on the annual St Mary's visit to Mnyakanya School in Kwa Zulu, Natal. During their stay they had taken shoes for all the children in a neighbouring orphanage as well as giving their time to pupils in a local junior school.

A Rotary spokesman said: "Their main task however was, as always, to take a group of Mnyakanya pupils through a short sport leadership course which enabled the new leaders to pass on in a final sports day what they had learned about the new to them sports of rugby, rounders and netball. Pupils in the group also spent some of their time teaching classes before an always appreciative audience.

"Aireborough Rotary had been one of the first groups to support the school in its Bambisanani enterprise, most recently supplying tablets for grateful pupils’ use. To mark this ten year partnership Catherine presented Club President Heather Read with a recently published book illustrating St. Mary’s adventurous project.

"The school and the Rotary Club are now working together on a grant proposal to enable the school and its pupils working with very basic facilities to dramatically improve its current situation."

Qiyu Cai from Horsforth and Kristiana Barzanov from St. Mary’s also gave a presentation about the Rotary Youth Leadership Award week they had both recently attended at Hebden Hey - outlining the challenges they had faced and the ways they had benefitted.