CALLINGTON College students were part of a team who travelled to the Gambia last month to help with voluntary aid projects which are improving the life of locals.

A team of 29 school students, teachers and medics from Cornwall and Plymouth went to the small village of Bissari, where they were met with a warm welcome from locals.

The twelve-day stay, for which students raised money, was spent getting involved with voluntary aid projects.

Callington College Year 13 student Emily Tamblyn said: 'I personally helped in the medical centre, carrying out simple tasks such as taking the blood pressures and temperatures of the patients waiting to be treated.

'People travel many miles by donkey or on foot to receive the free, advanced care that the team offer in the medical centre, making this work very much relied upon by the locals and surrounding areas of Bissari.

'I also visited the primary school, assisting in running art projects with the children, allowing them to make banners and bunting to decorate their classrooms.

'These were very rewarding projects, making the visit to Gambia a very worthwhile and eye opening experience.'

For several months prior to the trip, the students raised money in any way they could to fund it, including the annual 'Rag Week', and hosting refreshments at college productions.

Fellow Year 13 student Thomas Clements said: 'We took a tour of the village and the local school. The school was quite shockingly bare and the food supplied for the children was mostly cous cous — it even had a little farm.

'The difference was astonishing to our places of education at home.

'The children were enthusiastic in wanting a good education and making the most of the opportunities given to them. All had grand ideas of what they wanted to be, ranging from doctors to carpenters.'

Thomas said they sorted a rota of chores, which included daily water collection from the water pump, and he helped to make bricks for a local family's house.

'We were kindly invited into the house for breakfast after we had made 100 bricks,' he said. 'The generosity and kindness of the family was wonderful and we saw it repeated throughout Bissari.'