Outstanding year of impact for the Bambisanani Partnership
2025 was a year of strong progress and meaningful impact for the Bambisanani Partnership. Working together with partners and communities, the Partnership continued to turn shared vision into action delivering initiatives that make a real difference in people’s lives.
Throughout the year, Bambisanani focussed on programmes that responded to community-identified needs while supporting long term growth and resilience. By placing communities at the centre of its work, the Partnership ensured that initiatives were relevant, inclusive and grounded in local realities. This approach strengthened trust and encouraged shared ownership of outcomes.
Collaboration remained the foundation of Bambisanani’s success in 2025. By bringing together diverse partners around a common purpose, the Partnership improved coordination, used resources more effectively, and expanded its overall reach. This collective effort enabled greater impact than any single organisation could achieve alone.
Volunteers, Supporters and Partners of the Bambisanani Partnership have been praised by the charity’s CEO, David Geldart, for their outstanding dedication and impact in 2025.
Over the course of the past 19 years, the Leeds based charity has engaged over 34,000 young people from both South Africa and the UK in its various programmes and projects using the power of sport to promote education, health, global citizenship. The partnership which started with St. Mary’s and Mnyakanya now includes 60 schools, colleges and universities. This year saw no less than 7,515 young people from both counties involved. The inspirational work of this small charity, run entirely by volunteers, has gained global recognition.
Over a three-month period in the summer 35 student volunteers and 10 members of staff fromSt. Mary’s School, Menston; The University of Leeds and Newcastle College worked with 32 different schools and 3,589 learners in the remote rural Nkandla region of KwaZulu-Natal. This included 7 new schools being added to the various programmes this year. Primary and secondary school learners participated in a range of activities including Sports Festivals, Sports Coaching sessions, Cycling Clinics, Leadership Programmes, Literacy Festivals and wider academic curricular and extracurricular activities. Students involved in the volunteer programme recorded a 39% increase across ten key graduate employability skills.
Throughout the year the charity’s pioneering Cycling partnership with KZN Cycling trained 3,490 young people how to ride and maintain bikes. This work has now progressed to include various Cycling Competitions and a Talent Identification Programme. The Cycling programme reached the milestone of involving 10,000 children this year since the initiative began; an achievement that was recognised in the South African Parliament for ‘transforming lives and communities’
Supported by a range of Bambisanani based interventions the significant hard work by teachers and students saw Mnyakanya High School achieve its best academic results and significantly increased enrolment. The school has gone from a Matriculation examination pass rate of less than 20% a few years ago to over 90% this year.
Throughout the year 346 children from 13 UK and South African primary schools joined together to participate in the Bambisanani International Athletics Challenge.
Young people are not ‘just’ participants in Bambisanani programmes they also lead them. This is clear in the partnerships Leadership Through Sport courses where young people from both countries work together to deliver sports programmes to the wider community and in our Cycling programme but also in other ways. This year St. Mary’s student Leona Vaduatha and Mnyakanya student Bayanda Gcaba have both had inspirational work published about the Bambisanani Partnership. Two years ago, a then 8-year-old Althaea Dickenson from York started collecting books for South African primary schools on hearing that they could not participate in World Book Day. This work has continued this year with over 2,000 books collected and distributed to schools. Her initiative has been praised not only by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education but also her local Member of Parliament, Keir Mather.
This year saw Bambisanani volunteer Poppy Bhengu from South Africa gain her PhD in Philosophy of Sport and Exercise Science. Poppy is an outstanding role model who overcame many challenges to achieve her success. Dr Bhengu will be an inspiration to many young people involved in Bambisanani programmes.
Work with partners and the local community to bring clean water and sanitation to Thembinfundu Special School has continued. This is a major undertaking that has the capacity to transform the school. Progress is slow but significant; a Bore Hole has been reinstated; Water Storage Tanks are now in place and some plumbing into the school has been possible. The situation has improved but is still deplorable; the partnership remains committed to working with others to provide facilities that the children deserve.
Yet again this year the charity has been recognised for its commitment and contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 and 17 namely Good Health and Wellbeing, Quality Education, Gender Equality, Clean Water and Sanitation, Reduced Inequalities and Partnership for Goals. It is the experience of the partnership that these are very important issues for young people and that its international collaborative encounters and activities significantly enhance their knowledge, understanding and motivation to become proactive global citizens who wish to create a kinder, more equitable and sustainable future.
The University of Leeds received a Global Impact Award for their pioneering work in South Africa developing our Cycling programme and Leadership through Sport initiative in primary schools. The work of the partnership has been further recognised this year in several journals, the prestigious Trialogue Business Handbook and in a BBC interview.
Recognising, rewarding and celebrating the achievement of young people through annual awards is an important aspect of the charity’s work. During 2025 17 special awards were presented to students at Mnyakanya High School, Ntolwane Primary School, Vumanhlamvu Primary School and Thembinfundo Special School.
The Bambisanani Partnership works with, and coordinates, a range of other charities, organisations and businesses with aligning values. A great example of this this year was working with the UK charity Kit Aid who donated over 1000 football shirts for schools in South Africa. The Shipping company the Cardinal Partnership transported these to South Africa and also donated over 1,000 sports shirts. In South Africa these shirts were distributed by long term Bambisanani collaborators, Eshowe Rotary Club and the Norwegian charity Zulufadder.
During the year significant amounts of money were raised and donated by Bambisanani volunteers, institutions and supporters. Sponsored events saw supporters walk, run, climb, row, swim and cycle some incredible distances to raise much needed funds. Bambisanani activities could not happen without this generosity and tremendous effort.
With no employees or premises all money donated and raised goes to fund front line projects and activities. Furthermore, it is the policy of the charity always to seek a percentage of funding for every project from South African sources and indeed only for projects that have been identified by local communities. The partnership remains an incredibly lean and efficient organisation committed to respectful and sustainable development.
David Geldart was full of praise for the Bambisanani team, “This has been an outstanding year of activity and impact, and it simply could not happen without our small army of volunteers, supporters and sponsors from both countries. They are wonderful selfless people who are making a real difference in the world. Behind all the impressive statistics from this year are real people whose lives have been positively impacted. Our work is not about charity or ‘rescue’ it is about collaboration and mutual respect. All our work is driven by the schools and communities in South Africa that we work with. Our aim is to develop capacity and empower the communities in which we work not to create a dependency culture. Our work has always striven to create genuine ‘two-way’ learning opportunities for young people from both countries. I have nothing but praise for our team members in both countries who make all this happen and know that their focus is now firmly on 2026 and making that our most successful year to date.”
Overall, 2025 stands out as a successful and impactful year for the Bambisanani Partnership. The progress achieved reflects the dedication of partners, community members, and supporters who believe in the power of working together. As Bambisanani looks ahead, it does so with confidence, strengthened relationships, and a continued commitment to creating positive and lasting change.
Some Bambisanani Highlights from 2025
