Money raised in Waimate and North Otago has paid for a new classroom block at a farm training school for destitute and street boys in Kenya, cementing a link which goes back about seven years.
Most of the $76,000 to build the classrooms and extra money to furnish them has come from the rural area of the two regions.
It has been donated to the Waimate Afri-Lift Charitable Trust, established in 2008 with trustees Ian Moore and Paul Grigg, to help the school.
The Osiligi (meaning hope) Training Centre is about 45 minutes from Nairobi and has already had assistance from the Waimate trust.
It is run by the Afri-Lift Missionary Society, established by Robin and Margaret Aim, who live in Kenya.
The latest assistance is the new classroom block, which was opened by New Zealand's South African High Commissioner Richard Mann earlier this month.
The trust's next project is to raise funds to assist Morven man and Lincoln College student Shaun Snoxell to spend three months as a volunteer at the training centre.
He has a passion for alleviating poverty and has already spent time volunteering in Africa.
Mr Grigg said Waimate's association with the centre started before 2008, when the town's Rotary club provided about $60,000 in funding from a global Rotary fund for irrigation at the school.
That led to the trust being set up for further fundraising to assist the centre.
The next major contribution was last year when it combined with other New Zealand Rotary clubs and contributed $20,000 to the centre - $10,000 for glasshouses and $10,000 for farming equipment.
This year it was the classrooms block, with donations coming in from South Canterbury to North Otago - and support would be ongoing.
''What has been given so far is amazing, particularly considering the state of the dairy industry at the moment,'' Mr Grigg said.
Mr Aim said the classroom block would enhance the students' training.
''Most of these students have grown up in the city of Nairobi and know very little about agriculture,'' he said.
With 50% unemployment in Kenya, the chances of jobs for boys with limited education were very slim.
However, Kenya had huge agricultural potential and the Waimate-North Otago community had got behind the project in an incredible way, helping destitute children get an education that enabled them to get jobs in the growing agricultural sector, Mr Aim said.
After Mr Mann had opened the classroom block, he handed over to the centre a tractor, plough and rotovator from the New Zealand Aid Programme to help the farm operate more efficiently.
Students would also learn how to operate a tractor, improving their chances of obtaining jobs, Mr Aim said.
