When Rotary members Ian and Helen Garske travelled to Brazil in October last year, they reunited with Luciana Belomo Yamaguchi, who stayed with their family for three months during her Rotary Youth Exchange in 1993.

During their visit, Ms Belomo Yamaguchi showed the Garskes the APS Down school where she volunteers in the city of Londrina.

The school aims to educate people with Down Syndrome aged from two to 60 and also provides a creche for preschool-aged children and some physiotherapy services.

Mr Garske said the Rotary club was happy to put money towards a well-deserving project, contributing almost $5000 in a matching grant, with funding also contributed by two Rotary clubs in Brazil and the worldwide Rotary organisation to make up a total of $13,000.

“It’s great for the club to have remote contact with an exchange student who spent time in Armidale,” he said.

“They were very quick to say, ‘let’s put in some money’.”

The funding will go towards the installation of an industrial kitchen at the school, with the goal to teach students basic cooking skills to help them be self-

sufficient and to give them a way of fundraising money for school.

Mr Garske said although Rotary participates in matching grant projects in Africa and Asia, the involvement with a South American country was more unusual.

“Brazil is an interesting country because it’s highly developed in some senses but it has a huge population of poor,” he said. “Basic services that we take for granted aren’t necessarily available.”

Mr Garske said the club was being kept up-to-date on the school’s process by Luciana, who runs a blog about the project.

“Having a contact in the city through Luciana means the language barrier has been overcome,” he said.