A TEAM of kind-hearted volunteers is back home after helping out teachers, pupils and community leaders in a remote part of the Gambia.

The 12 people, including six from Swindon, visited a school and a nursery school in the town of Bangsang, plus schools in the villages of Daru and Ndkiri Kunda, which are in the country’s central river region.

There they installed solar-powered lights and led teacher-training in two schools, delivered first aid training in three communities, and helped to redecorate a nursery school.

They also handed out educational supplies, sports equipment, and bras, some of which were donated in Swindon, and some of which were bought with the £3,429 they raised before the trip.

Jo Heaven, 49, of Kingshill, who led the team, said: “The area doesn’t get a lot of support. Most of the work done by charity is on the coast, so the central and upper river regions are pretty much ignored by charity.

“And we like to go to where there’s less tourists, where you see the real Gambia.”

The group was working with the charity Lights for Learning, which makes the solar lights, and First Aid 4 Gambia. Among fundraisers was a charity music night with bands including the Graham Mack Rock Band.

The items the team donated included the bras which had been used to pad out the boxes of solar lights, as well as stationery, footballs and frisbees.

Jo, a mother-of-two, said they had a good reaction in the Gambia.

“Everyone was pleased to see us, and the most particularly successful trip was Dara school, which has no electricity at all,” she said.

“At the end of it they were so pleased that the Fuluas tribe got up ad danced and the Woolofs got up and danced, and we got up and danced as well.”

Jo seeks keen cyclists for a 120-mile bike relay across the Gambia in February 2013. This will also involve installing solar lights, delivering bicycles, and running bike maintenance classes and first aid training.

She also needs people with a variety of skills, particularly science teachers, to return to the central river region in April 2013.

Contact her on heavenfamily@aol.com or 07771 804365.