Moved by the tsunami, charity to Sri Lanka continues

After seeing news reports of the devastating tsunami that hit Sri Lanka five years ago, Cavan Sullivan was determined to help in some way. Sullivan made the New Year's resolution to build a house for a family there. Five years later, the house has been built but Sullivan's charity to the people of Sri Lanka has not stopped.

From the Wales Online, writer Cathy Owen tells us more about Sullivan's adventures.

The house, which cost £1,900 to build and furnish, is in a tiny remote village, five kilometres inland on the banks of a river, close to a town called Hikkaduwa in the south west of Sri Lanka. The village was devastated as the killer wave rushed up the river devastating areas in its path. The house is now home to the Lounaris family – Samina, who at the time was aged four, and her grandfather and grandmother.

It was all paid for by Cavan, friends and customers of his double-glazing firm, Welsh Windows. He also provided curtains for the house, a bike for Samina’s grandfather, and set up a fund so Samina can be educated to university age.

“She may not want to go to university, but a least she has the opportunity,” said Cavan, who also pays for the family to buy Samina milk.

“They had very little when the tsunami struck and they lost everything.”

He was going to end it there but during their trip, Cavan visited a school and saw that the majority of children didn’t have any shoes.

That was it, he couldn’t stop with just a house. He had to do more and set about raising money to buy shoes for the children. He contacted some of those friends who helped him raise money and many children received shoes for the first time in their lives.

Much of the initial fundraising was done by Cavan, Debra, their daughter Aimee and her friend Nichola Adams. It snowballed from there and the charity has a board of trustees, including fellow Barry businessman Andy Rogers. Last month, Cavan and Andy travelled to Sri Lanka to see how the charity’s money is making a difference.
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They held a Christmas party for 300 of the poorest children and organised a five-a-side football tournament. The trip also included a visit to a school that was built 98 years ago but never had electricity. The HAT Foundation paid £720 to change all that and now the children have fans, lights and sockets.

More beekeeping in Uganda

A pair of UK beekeepers were profiled for teaching beekeeping skills to children in Uganda. Dave Bonner and Cath Tompsett traveled to Uganda with the charity Global Care. The charity raised the money for beekeeping equipment and the couple is teaching the people how to do it to earn extra income.

From the article in the Coventry Telegraph, we read more about how this type of skill can help the poor in Uganda.

Ten new hives have been provided which will mean extra income for poor families, better nutrients for malnourished children, and eventually, a vocational training opportunity for young people supported by Global Care.

Dave, 57, a bee inspector for Leicestershire and Rutland, said: “The idea is to give the children another skill and another source of income.

If people can get a hive with the correct baiting, which introduces a smell within it to attract the bees, then it is easy to keep them.

“Bees are plentiful in Uganda. The land is lush and green and there is lots of forage.

“A hive built locally only costs about £20 but when the average worker there is only being paid about 30p a day, which is £90 a year, then they simply can’t afford to do it.

“What we are doing is raising money for the hives and giving people awareness of bee keeping and teaching the skills so they can be used as a local resource.

“Once it is up and running a hive can give them an additional £120-£150 a year through selling honey and wax.”

Nursing in Uganda

A nurse from the UK is about to return to Uganda to help give health care training. Pam LLewellyn works with Voluntary Service Overseas, an UK charity that sends people to the under-developed world to help out. Mrs. LLewellyn spent 10 months of last year in Uganda, and is returning for six months more.

In a story for the UK newspaper the Malvern Gazette, Mrs. LLewellyn explains the differences in nursing and her work in Uganda. More on Voluntary Service Overseas can be found at this website.

“It is very different over there,” said Mrs Llewellyn. “I went out as a community nurse to try and improve the health in the villages, specifically tackling malaria and HIV.

“It is a very poor area, and it was quite an adjustment when I got out there. The contrast with back home could not be greater. We have everything and they have nothing.

“There is no transport, there are often no nurses in the hospitals and all the little things that we take for granted are just not there.”

A large part of Mrs Llewellyn’s work in Uganda was to give healthcare training to almost 100 local volunteers.

“The whole idea of VSO is that you go and set up a project and leave behind something that is workable and can carry on without you,” she explained.

Ahead of her return Mrs Llewellyn is trying to raise £10,000 to subsidise the purchase of mosquito nets for every household in the area she has been working.

The Wales Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign

A news story in the UK's Evening Leader taught us about a group from Wales who organize fundraisers to help people in Nicaragua. The group is called the Wales Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign. Led by David McKnight, the group is about to take another trip to Nicaragua to help families that were hurt by Hurricane Felix.

The group operates a blog on Word Press. The Evening Leader's story tells us what the group hopes to do on their latest trip.

It will be the 32-year-old's fourth trip to Central America's poorest country, which he has visited every two years since 2001 as a member of the Wales Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, which was founded 20 years ago to help struggling families, promote fair trade and create links between the two countries.

David, of Mynydd Isa, and six other campaign members from across Wales will leave on their latest trip on Valentine's Day and will visit Los Quinchos Centre, which works with children who live and work on the huge la Chureca rubbish dump in the capital city of Managua, and who have no choice but to scavenge in order to survive.

The group will also travel to Bilwi on the Caribbean coast, which suffered huge amounts of damage when Hurricane Felix struck the region a year ago. The hurricane killed hundreds of people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes, including entire villages.

David said: "One of the reasons why we are travelling to Bilwi is to see if there is any support we can provide, to help with the long term reconstruction of the area."

Before returning home to begin raising money for those in desperate need of help, the group will stay on a Fairtrade coffee farm in Matagalpa, in the mountains in Nicaragua.

David said: "The campaign has promoted Fairtrade coffee and sesame from Nicaragua for over a decade.

Helping to give health to the Nigerian people

The health care in Nigeria is in a very bad state. Despite being a very oil rich country, corruption and closed clinics leave the public in ill-health. The money from the oil does not go back into services for the public. Also, many state run health clinics have shut down, as the staff have quit when no pay checks came from the government.

Two Nigerian doctors who received their education in UK have started a charity to help bring health to Nigeria (wiki). Belinda Otas a writer for the BBC, introduces us to the doctors, and what happened on their first visit.

The dire state of Nigerian healthcare has prompted two UK-based Nigerians to form a non-governmental organisation known as the Ibelaw Community Health & Social Care Foundation.

Through the foundation, Dr Ibe Nathans, a medical doctor, and Lawrence Ndulor, a clinical psychologist, offer free primary healthcare to the poor and needy in the Niger Delta - their home region and an area torn apart by poverty and violence despite its oil revenues.

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With the benefit of a UK-based education Dr Nathans and Mr Ndulor feel they should be helping other Nigerians who are not as privileged as them. "We tried to see as many patients as we could, and were warmly welcomed," said Mr Ndulor.

"My job was to give them pre-medical counselling to help them prevent disease in future, but also for things like stress and anxiety," he added.

However, tragedy struck just before the team left to return to London.

"In the house where I was staying, in the middle of the night some armed robbers broke in and demanded money, I gave them what I had but they shot me in the chest as they were leaving," said Mr Ndulor.

Stabilised at a local hospital in Nigeria, he was rushed back to London for treatment and had 32 pellets removed from his chest.

"I haven't been back to Nigeria since, but I hope to go back soon," said Mr Ndulor.

On a mission

This has not slowed his partner down and during the past year alone Dr Nathans has visited Nigeria three times, seeing 500 patients on each trip, dealing with health complaints ranging from abdominal pain to measles and malnutrition.

Pair will devote year to help poor people in Guatemala

from The Northern Echo

A profile on a couple who are taking a year off for a mission trip to Guatemala. The country has a high crime rate, but the pair are willing to take the risk. - Kale

A NURSE and her husband are taking a year-long career break and giving up creature comforts to travel to Central America and help some of the world’s poorest people.

Community psychiatric nurse Sarah Hogg and her husband, Simon, have made the life-changing decision to spend a year in Guatemala, volunteering for a charity which helps street children and destitute single mothers.

However, in order to share their skills and expertise in the extremely deprived town of Santiago Sacatepequez, the couple need to raise £600 in sponsorship for every month they are there.

Mr and Mrs Hogg, both 32, set off for Central America next month.

They will be working for Mission Guatemala, a charity established three years ago by a British family, which has set up a church and school and helped to transform the lives of the 42 children they are educating.

Mrs Hogg, who has worked at West Park Hospital, in Darlington, since 2002, will be teaching and continuing the charity’s outreach work with homeless children, who are often left with no alternative but to live on rubbish dumps.

She also hopes to work with women in the area who are forced to raise children alone and in poverty.

“We had some quite difficult personal circumstances over the past two years, and it gave us a sense of what is important,”

said Mrs Hogg, a qualified nurse of 11 years.

“As a Christian, I felt quite moved that if I could do something to help people, I should.

“When they think of poverty, people tend to think of places in Africa. Central America has been called the forgotten continent. The people are desperately, desperately poor – you are talking about people who are living on less than 50p a day.”

The couple recently visited the mission ahead of their planned trip.

“We were very humbled by some of the people we met who had nothing, yet were so pleased we were there. We went to see a family who were living in just a tin shed, but had decorated the roof with crepe paper for us.”

To sponsor the couple, call New Life Baptist Church on 01609-775396 or email sarahm.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Glasgow professor Ivan Turok ready to help South Africa's townships

from the Times Online, UK

Here's a story of a man escaping South Africa and returning to help. Despite going back he is worried about the safety of his family. - Kale

Charlene Sweeney

Ivan Turok was only 10 when his family left South Africa but he will never forget the relentless persecution that drove them out. His parents were involved in the struggle against apartheid and his father, who had been under house arrest, faced a long prison sentence.

“It was very frightening,” he said. “We used to get woken up in the middle of the night by police — sometimes with dogs — trying to find [political] material.”

Compelled by the intimidation that he experienced as a child, the Professor of Urban Economic Development at the University of Glasgow is now ready to make his own contribution to the country of his birth.

Professor Turok is returning to South Africa to take an 18-month secondment at the University of Cape Town, where he will help to establish a multidisciplinary centre to improve African cities. Its priority will be to tackle the appalling conditions in the notorious townships of South Africa.

Formed on the outskirts of cities during the apartheid era to segregate blacks from whites, townships are a volatile mix of overcrowding, unemployment and slum housing. They are mainly responsible for South Africa's reputation as one of the most violent countries in the world, with more than 50 people killed every day.

“The sheer pressure on space means that sewerage systems are overcome; fires spread from shack to shack and people living cheek-to-jowl become involved in power struggles. Townships are the real problem areas,” Professor Turok said.

“Under apartheid townships were not a priority so local authorities do not have a lot of expertise in upgrading them. It is not always money that is the issue in such places — it is the technical know-how.”

After more than 20 years of studying the worst-off communities in Glasgow, the academic, who has advised governments as well as the UN and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, hopes to adapt policies from his adopted home. Providing jobs and training “like in the UK” is one common solution, as is building better housing.

“The danger is that you think you have a lot of answers when you don't,” he said. “You have to have a mindset which is openness to the local situation; a willingness to learn; not going in there thinking you know the answers.”

One of the wider problems in Africa, he said, was that native governments and international aid agencies overlooked urban poverty in favour of focusing on rural deprivation.

“These cities are growing very quickly because of migration from the countryside so there is a huge challenge in keeping up without health risks. The main challenges are to do with basic survival: infrastructure, sanitation, running water, basic housing,” said the professor, who has an MSc in town planning from Cardiff University.

Other challenges include making cities sustainable by developing them close to centres of employment, schools and hospitals.

Professor Turok described his secondment to Cape Town as a personal journey. When his family left the country they lived in Kenya and Tanzania for three years before moving to Britain as refugees. They became British citizens six years later.

His parents returned after the fall of apartheid in 1992 to become MPs and his father, Ben Turok, 81, is one of the leading — and oldest — parliamentarians in South Africa.

One of his two brothers, Neil, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, has established a science centre at Muizenberg, near Cape Town. Now, he said, it was his own turn “to put something back in”.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Clare can see the good in her work

from the Scotsman

By JOANNA VALLEY
Meet the Edinburgh optometrist who helps transform the sight – and the lives – of people in Africa.

THE barefoot Ethiopian woman had queued all morning to have her blind two-year-old son seen by the white "miracle workers".

Desperate for help, she had walked three hours from her village carrying the youngster to the temporary eye clinic, but as Edinburgh optometrist Clare Downes looked into the tiny child's white pupils she realised she was going to have to break bad news.

The youngster had cataracts, which had turned the lens behind his pupils white. There was nothing the Vision Aid Overseas team could do for him.

If he had been born in the UK, his cataracts would have been removed in a routine operation at birth, but such treatment was an unaffordable luxury for his family.

Clare, who transformed lives by delivering thousands of spectacles donated in the Capital, says: "It was very upsetting.

"She was devastated. She'd thought we could solve her problems because they think as white people you are some kind of miracle workers."

Vision Aid Overseas sent Clare, 29, as part of a team of six opticians to test eyes and prescribe glasses in Ethiopian villages.

This year's trip was her second to the impoverished country, following a similar visit in 2006. She and her colleagues at opticians RC Cunning in Penicuik and Bruntsfield spent months collecting glasses from customers.

In two weeks in Africa, her team examined 2041 patients and dispensed 1643 pairs of glasses.

What they were offering was something that is simply out of reach for most Ethiopians.

Stephen Thompson, spokesman for Vision Aid Overseas, says the population is one of the worst afflicted in the world in terms of blindness and poor sight.

"In Ethiopia, of a population of 78 million, eight to ten million are thought to have visual impairment needing glasses and half of those are children," he says.

"Blindness and even refractive error, or the need for spectacles, is intrinsically linked to poverty, poor hygiene and diet.

"In the UK we have several opticians on each high street but in countries like Ethiopia they don't have any, and in the developing world an average person would need to spend eight to ten months salary to buy a pair of glasses."

Testing around 40 people each day, Clare encountered many people with problems worse than those she usually treated in Scotland. Among the most serious was trachoma – a disease carried by flies – while other conditions were caused by unrelenting exposure to the sun, and simple malnutrition.

Around 300 million people in the world have sight so poor they cannot perform everyday tasks, but 60 per cent of them could have their problems solved with glasses, says Clare.

Though there were some people the team were unable to help, like the baby with cataracts, other success stories spurred them on.

One of those was a seven-year-old Dejeuner who'd had to give up school because his eyesight was too poor to see the blackboard.

"We had to give him big old women's glasses," recalls Clare, "They were very thick and we gave him a ski band to hold them on. But I asked the man in the lab if there was any way he could cut the lenses to fit another frame."

Minutes later the youngster was sporting a new pair of specs and what the volunteers call "The Vision Aid smile" – the broad grin of someone who has just seen after years in the dark.

"He was so happy," says Clare. "The glasses were huge and falling off but he was over the moon because he'd never seen before. I had a big lump in my throat."

Clare, who lives in Edinburgh's West End, was inspired to be a Vision Aid Overseas volunteer when the charity gave a talk at Glasgow Caledonian University when she was studying optometry. However, the sheer volume of patients the opticians are expected to test on their overseas trips meant she had to wait until she was very experienced before she could offer help.

"It was the most amazing thing I've ever done," enthuses Clare, who asked for donations for her second Vision Aid trip instead of wedding presents when she married fund manager Charles, 32, last July.

One of the most rewarding moments was witnessing people's awe at getting glasses for the first time and the difference they made to their lives – though it sometimes took a while to sink in.

"Sometimes they went out and said the glasses were too strong because the difference is too scary for them. Their world goes from very hazy to too clear," she said.

In the villages Clare visited, under two hours from the capital Addis Ababa, families lived in one-room circular huts, without water or electricity and often with their animals crammed in.

Most had never had their eyes tested, so when the travelling clinic opened each day at 8am, there'd be long lines waiting.

Because they didn't speak English, patients used the "Illiterate E test", looking at a series of letter Es and showing with their hands the way they were facing.

"Most couldn't get beyond the first (largest) letter of the chart," says Clare. "We took out 5000 pairs of glasses yet by the end we ran out of certain prescriptions, but they had never had glasses so seeing anything was a huge improvement."

One patient who made a big impact on Clare was a 21-year-old student, suffering from extremely poor sight due to malnutrition. "He was studying engineering at college and his degenerative condition had become apparent in the first year of his studies," she says.

"Though he was devastated his sight was going to get worse he was happier with a pair of reading glasses and we gave him a pair of sunglasses.

"In cases where we couldn't help we often gave them sunglasses to make them feel better as they are quite a fashion statement.

Since her return, Clare has been able to show some of those who donated glasses what a difference their small gesture had made.

She says: "A lot of people just throw their old glasses out but a pair of glasses can be life-changing for someone in Ethiopia."

Jonathan Sherman, 34, an accounting manager from Dock Street, Leith, donated his old glasses. "We all know from the 80s how bad Ethiopia was," he says.

"It's a really good cause and a great thing Clare does to donate her time."

Looking at her picture album, including a snap of an Ethiopian youngster wearing glasses like his, he adds: "It feels very good to be able to help people that really need it."

THE GIFT OF SIGHT

VISION Aid Overseas is a UK charity dedicated to helping people in the developing world whose lives are blighted by poor eye sight, particularly in those cases where spectacles can help.

Since it started in 1985, VAO has provided 600,000 eye tests and given 300,000 people the ability to see with a pair of glasses.

The charity sends around 240 qualified opticians abroad each year as volunteers to work in developing countries.

Pauline makes a difference

from the Chester Chronicle

by Rebecca Edwards, Chester Chronicle

FACED with hundreds of Ugandan children living in poverty with no medical care for AIDS and malaria, a retired GP set herself the challenge to build them an £85,000 medical centre.

Dr Pauline Hutchinson, who lives in Kingswood near Frodsham, set on the extraordinary journey four years ago after she was asked to investigate the dire health needs of youngsters in a remote region of the African country.

Dr Hutchinson, 57, retired as a GP in Runcorn 17 years ago and first visited Uganda in 2004 to advise on the health needs of local children, on behalf of the Just Care charity, of which she is a trustee, and which also supports two schools and an AIDS orphanage.

She said her observations, and those of other professionals, highlighted the “desperate lack of care and consequent high mortality rate among thousands of children in the area where half the population is under 14 years old and life expectancy is still just 46 years.”

She said: “The first thing I noticed was how many children there were and how few older people, all living in extreme poverty and miles away from the nearest hospital.

“Malaria is rife and AIDS and HIV is still a huge problem for these people.

“I felt angry as well as saddened that the world is not aware of the neglect of these children and that something had to be done for them.”

Four years later her commitment has paid off.

Dr Hutchinson almost single-handedly raised the funds to build, equip and staff the Wellspring Children’s Medical Centre which is now up and running in the village of Kamutuuza.

In September she will be guest of honour at the official opening ceremony of the facility, which offers accessible and affordable health care for hundreds of youngsters whose lives are threatened by widespread AIDS/HIV and malaria.

The medical centre – named after the Wellspring Christian Trust counselling service she and her consultant surgeon husband, Geoff, set up in Frodsham – boasts four clinic rooms; a doctors office; dressings room; a laboratory; a pharmacy and waiting areas.

It also has an observation ward, an acute malaria day-case ward and is also the base for an AIDS outreach service.

It also runs a child health screening and vaccination programme, health education and provides general health care and minor injuries facility.

All the staff are Ugandan and Dr Hutchinson said it was “really important they take ownership”.

Dr Hutchinson will continue managing the medical centre and raising funds to maintain it.

She said she was “extremely grateful” for “very generous” donations so far from family, friends and supporters, at home and overseas, including countless individuals, groups, schools and businesses. Most recently the Rotary Club of Frodsham and Helsby have donated £800.

However, at least another £40,000 is needed to meet future running and development costs to prove the medical centre’s sustainability and ensure the Ugandan Health Authority will adopt and assist in maintaining this vital new service.

Dr Hutchinson said: “I thought my first visit to Uganda would be a one-off, but I was so convinced of the needs of these children I couldn’t just walk away from the problem.

“There are huge problems all over the world, but I truly felt I had been led to Uganda and I didn’t want to go down the road of saying it’s an impossible task. It just takes time and perseverance.

Dr Hutchinson is happy to speak to community groups about the project, and individuals wishing to make a donation can also contact her on 07720 848 888

Ghana's to get aid

from the Strathspey Herald

A STUDENT nurse from Aviemore and her three friends will be heading to Ghana this summer to hone their skills and help tackle diseases including malaria and Aids which are blighting the country.

Fiona Reid, a former Grantown Grammar School pupil, will be working as a volunteer in a hospital and orphanage in a rural part of the west coast African country for three months from mid-June with the charity Projects Abroad.

Over one-fifth of children under the age of five die in Ghana because of malaria alone - a tropical disease caused by a parasite known as Plasmodium which is spread through the bite of an infected female mosquito.

Fiona will be joined on the trip by the three-housemates she shares with in central Edinburgh - Sarah Russell (21) from Harrogate, 23-year-old Louise Harrington from St Andrews; and Catherine Scott, also 21 and from Aberdeen.

The quartet are in their second-year of study at the capital's Napier University and have opted for the overseas trip as part of their course to gain practical nursing experience.

Fiona, who is the daughter of Nigel and Allyson Reid, owners of the Old Bridge Inn in Aviemore, is no stranger to globe trotting having taking a gap year out travelling in Australia in 2004 and worked a three-month stint as a tennis coach during the summer of 2006 in the north-east American state of Maine.

But she admits that working as a nurse in a country which has a rudimentary health care service will be something completely different, and confesses to having a few butterflies.

"I am getting a little nervous as the trip gets closer but I am really looking forward to being able to help out, too," remarked the 23-year-old who specialises in paediatrics.

"Nearly 40 per cent of Ghana's population is living below the national poverty line. Children's access to sanitation is low and this leads to serious problems with sickness, diarrhoea and dehydration.

"The incidence of malaria is high and this disease alone kills 22 per cent of children under the age of five years. HIV/Aids, malnutrition, measles, pneumonia and septicaemia are all widespread."

Amongst the challenges facing the health service in Ghana are poor distribution, high costs, and the poor quality and irrational use of medicines, she said. "It all of creates an instability within health care and administration which is a problem that our society would not recognise.

"The health service in Ghana is acknowledged as being 50 years behind us here in the UK so it should be a very interesting experience," she said.

But it's not just a one-way process, Fiona added. "We will be learning from the community by improving our own vital nursing skills and developing ancillary skills such as communication, child development, family support and clinical knowledge."

Initially, Fiona had been due to work this summer as a volunteer nurse in the Kingdom of Nepal which has a much more highly developed system of healthcare - but Projects Abroad recommended Ghana as a challenge that she would find more rewarding.

Fiona needs to raise £2,500 in total in order to head to Ghana - and she is on her way having saved £1,000.

Anyone wanting more information on the trip or to make a donation can contact Fiona by emailing fie_reid@hotmail.com or via the Aviemore pub.

Pawlett volunteer fights to help end global poverty

from Bridgewater Mercury

By James Beal

A VOLUNTEER from an overseas aid charity has told the Mercury of his "invigorating" time spent on foreign soil fighting global poverty.

Jim Barnard, 61, from Pawlett near Bridgwater, spent time in Mozambique, Malawi, Kosovo and Kazakhstan on behalf of international development charity Voluntary Service Overseas.

The charity worker explained his role in the VSO organisation, which sends volunteers across the world to pass on their expertise to those in less fortunate economic conditions.

Jim said: "I have done a few short terms overseas, helping countries out when they have specific problems. It's a great organisation doing a lot of good work.

"I work in development and help people build their income, so when the bad times come they can be prepared."

The agricultural consultant, who has also worked for the United Nations and European Union, told the Mercury of the benefits of the his work in other countries.

He said: "I was working with small farmers in Mozambique - looking to help them break into the small packet nuts business in Britain.

"With my help they went into fair trade and got a little bit more, that's how Fair Trade works - the buyer pays a little bit more and the money filters through the economic chain to the farmer."

The money made through the fair trade programme is then used to build vital structures, such as schools and wells.

Jim also praised the spirit of the people he worked with abroad, especially during his time in Africa.

He said: "Aids is a big killer over there and causes a lot of disruption. They are at an economic level that would make people's eyes water over here, but they are all so fun and happy, and are pleased to be doing things.

"The work is extremely invigorating."

Anyone wishing to open up new opportunities by working overseas for VSO can find more details by logging on to www.vso.org.uk.

Africa challenge is the trip of a lifetime

from IC Solihull

A SHELDON woman will be jetting off to Africa this summer to learn about life in an impoverished country as part of a new £10 million government scheme.

Twenty-three-year-old Heather Warrilow, has been chosen as one of three young people to take part in the global volunteering scheme which is backed by the Department for International Development and will be run in partnership with charities, such as Christian Aid, Islamic Relief and BUNAC, a non-profit organisation.

Launched at the end of last month by International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander during a visit to Birmingham, the project aims to give young adults the opportunity to live, work and experience life in a poorer country while making a difference to the lives of those there.

Heather's timetable includes spending ten weeks in either Ghana or South Africa on a community development project such as environmental conservation or an HIV/Aids awareness programme.

On her return to the UK she will be expected to attend roadshows and carry out other activities to draw attention to the plight of people affected by global poverty.

Heather, who works on a temporary basis for the Highways Agency, applied for the venture last month after learning about it at work.

A former student, she is no stranger to voluntary work and helps with youth activities as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Sheldon.

Speaking about the once in a lifetime opportunity, Heather who will be flying off to sunnier climes on May 13, said: "I feel honoured and humbled to be part of a project such as this.

"Not only will it raise my awareness of how my life in the UK compares to life in the developing world, I will be doing something really worthwhile that makes a positive impact on the community."

"My family think it is wonderful, they said you must go for this, I just couldn't believe it when I was chosen, it was a very happy moment, it will change my life."

Dr Hany El Banna, president of Islamic Relief, based in Birmingham, said: "This project is an amazing opportunity for everyone involved. It will offer young British adults from all backgrounds, especially those from less well-to-do families in the UK, the chance to travel as a group and do a voluntary work in a developing country. It will be a continuous journey of discovery."

Student nurses choose to face disease and poverty

from The Northwich Guardian

By Staff reporter

THREE student nurses at Leighton Hospital will travel more than 5,000 miles to experience poverty and disease.

Paula Bamping, Chris Westhead and Mandy Shaw will spend six weeks in Malawi later this year.

The three mums, aged 38, 43 and 44, will leave their comfortable homes and families to nurse in hospitals and villages in one of the poorest countries in the world.
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Paula said: "This is a big step for the three of us.

"We've all got nice houses, nice cars and things we take for granted but most people in Malawi live on less than 30p a day."

Chris added: "I think it's going to be a big life-changing experience - it will be an adventure because we don't know what's going to happen."

The three women, who are in their second year of a nursing diploma at Leighton, will be living in basic accommodation and helping people with HIV and AIDS, tropical diseases and TB, which is on the increase in Malawi.

As part of their diploma nursing students have to undertake a six-week observational diversity placement to experience other aspects of healthcare, but most stay closer to home.

Mum-of-two Paula added: "A lot of people stay in this country and go on a different ward in the hospital or work at Styal Prison."

Chris, mum to three teenagers, said: "We could have done anything really but we wanted to do something in an under-developed country."

Each of the women have to raise more than £2,000 before they leave on October 15 and have already received sponsorship from Instep UK in Sandbach and Sliders UK.

They are also accepting donations of shoes and clothing to take with them and have had donations of medical supplies from a company called Ambu.

Anyone else who can donate sponsorship or goods should contact Paula by emailing paulabamping@aol.com or ring her on 07929 985 024.