Teenager Beth McPhail has returned home from a year in Africa.

Beth, 19, from Laycock, has been helping orphaned children living in a village in Zimbabwe.

She went with the world organisation Project Trust, which is based in Austria. The village she stayed in is an 'SOS Children's Village', one of three in Zimbabwe and 370 worldwide.

The village contains 12 houses, built by the Trust and each containing 12 children and a mother. Beth says all the children are either orphaned or abandoned and the project is designed to try to create a family environment for them.

As part of her work, Beth cared for the younger children while the mother carried out her own tasks and older children when they were not at school. The children had little in the way of possessions and were not used to mixing. However, Beth got them playing with each other and interested in art and crafts.

She helped with the physiotherapy of one boy who was paralysed down one side from epilepsy. She also helped the children with their schoolwork.

And because the village was short of money Beth decided to raise funds, such as baking cakes, which the children thoroughly enjoyed. The fundraising gave the children the opportunity for trips to the cinema, swimming and spectacular Victoria Falls.

Beth says she loved her year in Zimbabwe and that she found it hard to say goodbye to the children.

Beth is a former pupil at Skipton Girls' High School and is soon to enter the University of Bangor to read psychology. She says she had always wanted to take a year out from her studies before going to university and approached the Project Trust, a world organisation based in Austria. Beth successfully completed the selection week, where she spent five days with a family, gave both presentations and lessons and had to prove her fitness.

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