A partnership between Keighley Town Council and Keighley Rotary Club has officially launched the campaign to twin Keighley with an African city.

The two organisations hope other groups across the town will back the bid to help Manzini, in the land-locked monarchy of Swaziland.

Keighley town mayor Cllr Nancy Holdsworth also wants the idea to be repeated across the country and Europe.

She came up with the idea of twinning with an African city as a means of supporting it after watching a television programme that said 14 million people are at risk of death through starvation in southern Africa.

She discussed the idea with Keighley Rotary Club president Dick Hazlehurst, who used the club's links with the Rotary Club movement to find a suitable and similar African town.

After Manzini was identified, Mr Hazlehurst e-mailed similar authorities in the city to gather more information and photographs of the city.

Following that, the official campaign was launched this week. Cllr Holdsworth said: "The town has its problems but it also has its positive aspects. We thought it was a town that we could help."

She had hoped Oxfam and UNICEF would help with the project but felt the twinning idea would give the scheme its own identity.

She said: "I wanted the people of Keighley to identify with the people of Manzini and show that we could actually make a difference.

"On an individual basis, if the school needs something the school gets it, if the hospital needs something, the hospital gets it.

"That is why we can make such a difference.

"It is not just about money but also about expertise."

As well as financial support, she wanted organisations that could offer services or equipment that was no longer required to come forward.

She added: "We have set off with the council and the Rotary club but we are keen to get other organisations involved with this.

"This is a twinning that can help rather than just a junketeering twinning."

The mayor was confident Keighley could put itself on the map by being the first town to offer such support.

She added: "I hope ten years down the line, Manzini is something that is talked about in Keighley. There might then be something we can buy and it could work as a two-way thing."

Mr Hazlehurst said: "From the Rotary point of view, we do an awful lot of work helping the third world.

"But most of the time a Rotary club which wants to do that is working its socks off, trying to raise funds within its own structure and within its own members.

And speaking on the way any funds and equipment could be utilised, Mr Hazlehurst added: "It could still be funnelled through the rotary movement, which gives a fair bit of credibility and guarantees that whatever is sent gets to the right place.

"We can also get some feedback and some pictures of what is being done."

The Rotary club in Manzini, although it only has 18 members, has undertaken a number of projects, which include help with an orphanage and the blind.

It hopes in the future to lend support with school fees -- children in Swaziland either pay for their schooling or receive no education.