TEN York teenagers are heading to the Rio Olympics in Brazil this summer as part of a scheme to encourage friendship and understanding between different nationalities.

The young people from Manor CE Academy will join ten young people from Brazil and ten from Hungary.

Together they will be volunteering in Rio de Janeiro for a week in August, arranging activities for children from the slums.

One of the York students Joe Armstrong, 16, said: “Hopefully, we will be able to help people who don’t have the same things we do and we’ll be able to change, not only their lives, but our lives too.

“It is an amazing opportunity.”

The Olympic Legacy project is funded by Eramus+, a European Union programme, and organised by York-based voluntary organisation Everything is Possible.

The project aims to ensure the Olympic Games bring lasting benefits to young people, particularly those with fewer opportunities.

Two teachers from Manor will join the teenagers on the trip.

Student, Alice Mills, 15 said: “At the moment the organisers are taking ideas from each group and combining them together to create a plan of what we are going to do while we are out there.

“It is very exciting and I am counting the days until we go. I feel incredibly lucky to be going.”

Clair Brown, of Everything is Possible, said: “It is a great feeling to arrange such an experience for young people, which offers great opportunities for personal development and to learn about other cultures. Brilliantly, it is also a chance for them to work in a local community where the small things we will take and do can make a big difference.”

Manor is part of the Hope Learning Trust, York, which currently comprises Manor and Poppleton Ousebank Primary School.

As previously reported by The Press, the trust recently announced that it intends to apply to create a new primary school plus nursery to serve on former British Sugar site to accommodate for children from planned new homes on the site.

To be called Alcuin CE Primary Academy, the new school would draw on the outstanding provision already in the trust, and would be a feeder school for Manor.

The location of the proposed new school is being discussed. Alcuin will have a Church of England ethos, in common with Manor, and a curriculum similar to Poppleton Ousebank. It will be non-selective, primary school.