Banking on a sporting link

From the archive, first published Tuesday 12th Feb 2008.

Sport is being used to link a school in Menston with one in South Africa.

Over the past two years, St Mary's, Menston have built up a partnership with Mnyakanya School in the rural and desperately poor Nkandla district of Kwa Zulu Natal.

And the efforts of St Mary's have been backed with a cheque for £3,000 from the HSBC bank.

The two schools refer to their work as the Bambisanani Partnership. Bambisanani is the Zulu word meaning working hand in hand'.

The work of the two schools, which uses sport to promote education, health and leadership, has gained international acclaim, with Thora Jacobs of the British Council in South Africa describing the work as "inspirational".

Last year, the HSBC Global Education Trust invited St Mary's assistant head David Geldart to speak at their annual conference about the school's work in South Africa.

The two schools have developed an ambitious

programme that will get more pupils into schools, provide much needed equipment, train teachers and sports coaches and develop leadership skills in young people.

Next month, a group of three staff and nine students from St. Mary's will visit South Africa and will be engaged in a range of community initiatives, including coaching sport, teaching other classes, training sport coaches, training teachers and most significantly engaging in joint leadership training activities which will culminate in students from both schools planning and delivering the first ever sports festival in the area.

HSBC premier manager Mick Russell said: "St Mary's is part of the HSBC Education Trust Family of Schools which was a major contribution in helping the school gain specialist sports college status and funded the school's new learning resource centre."