The teenage members of Hamilton Rotary Club’s youth division will be tackling projects ranging from providing square foot gardens to Bermuda’s elderly to funding a water harvesting programme in Zimbabwe.

Bermuda Interact, whose 25 members are from six schools and range in age from 13 to 17, will also be cleaning up beaches with Keep Bermuda Beautiful and helping to fund a new therapeutic pony for Windreach.

Cathy Bassett, youth director for Hamilton Rotary Club, said of the water project: “Often, girls [in Zimbabwe] have to get water from the river and bring it back to their village. As a result, many miss out on school.

“What we are going to do is provide funding to install piping and taps so that these rural villages can have running water, which will allow girls time to go to school.”

Pathologist and fellow Rotarian Takawira Mubako, a native of Zimbabwe, will help to link Bermuda Interact with the organisation in Zimbabwe to bring the project to fruition.

“In addition to providing funding [for this project], our children will also be communicating with them [virtually] … we will be with them from the project’s inception up until we see the water coming out,” Ms Bassett said.

These students will also be helping with Rotary District 7230’s mangrove preservation project, starting this weekend.

Ms Bassett said: “Our teens will be in Dockyard this weekend. They will take part in clean-ups of the mangrove areas [by Lagoon Park], and there will also be planting of mangroves.

“They will be doing this periodically throughout the year and they will also be doing growth and progress reports and will share the results.”

The group will also help to finance a new therapeutic pony for Windreach.

“The ponies [at Wind Reach] are used on academic and sensory awareness trails within the therapy layout with students from local schools as part of their individualised education plan,” Ms Bassett said.

These are just a few projects that Bermuda Interact has planned for this academic year.Their first meeting of this year will be held tomorrow in the Horticultural Hall at the Botanical Gardens.

The 25 students involved in this year’s programme range in between 13 and 17 years old and represent six different schools island-wide as well as some home schools.