A STUDENT is going to spend her summer holiday improving the desperate conditions in an overcrowded Bulgarian orph-anage.

Laura Wilkins, from Knott Lane, in Eastburn, is a medical student at Oxford University and she learnt of the plight of the Bulgarian orphans through a student organisation.

Laura will be joined by three of her fellow students who hope to ease the suffering at the orphanages.

The 20-year-old said: "We were all shocked by the situation out there. There are 35,000 children in 470 institutions in Bulgaria.

"The orphanages tend to be hidden in rural areas and many are at the same standard of the Romanian orphanages ten years ago. The majority of children in the institutions are there because of some disability, mental or physical. In some cases it can be as simple as a harelip. Such children are stigmatised in Bulgarian society and parents feel it is the right thing to do. Many believe that their child will receive specialist care," she said.

The students will be travelling to the Mother and Child Home orphanage, in Varna, next month, where they will be helping to train staff.

They will be putting into practice various activities which have proved successful in their voluntary work with special needs children here.

The students have been raising funds to take with them so that they can buy equipment and resources for the orphanage while they are there.

Laura added: "Our group is well aware that we cannot go out there and change Bulgaria, but we would like to contribute what we can.

"All four of us have had experience of working with special needs children via an organisation in Oxford. We would like to train the staff to run some of the activities we have used so successfully here, and teach them how to help the children in their care achieve the most out of life."

Laura said: "While we are out there we hope to seek out some of the less prominent orphanages which are likely to be in even greater need."

Laura will be going with an organisation called Magdalen College Aid to the Balkans, and has to raise her own funds.

Anyone would like to make a donation towards the funding of new resources for the orphanages should contact Laura on 07939 145223.