HARD-WORKING East Tynedale volunteers toiled through torrential rain and blistering heat to support children in South Africa.

A team of five volunteers from Prudhoe-based charity Spirit of Africa recently travelled to a children’s foster home and school to improve its hygiene facilities.

Spirit of Africa’s Ithembalihle project is based in Sankotshe, Kwa Zulu Natal, in the Valley of a Thousand Hills.

The project provides a foster home and pre-school for children without a home or suitable carer.

A £3,500 donation from Stocksfield-based organisation, Hope for South Africa’s Children, has funded two new toilet blocks for an accommodation wing.

Spirit of Africa trustee Carol Tree travelled to the Valley of a Thousand Hills last week with four volunteers to oversee the work.

Carol joined George Feeney, Grant Younger and builders Lorraine Thomson and Gary Thomson to help build the new facilities.

During their fortnight at the project, the team worked through torrential rain and high temperatures.

Carol said: “South Africa is incredibly beautiful, but sadly it has lots of ugliness.

“Some of our children have experienced such horror, but in the safety of Ithembalihle they have learned to trust and pull back their childhood.”