A PRENTON woman is raising money by organising activity days to help support her visit to Zambia where she will assist local tribesmen in building affordable homes for their families.

Hannah Healy, together with a team of 10 of her friends, is raising funds through Habitat for Humanity Charitable Trust to travel to Zambia for two weeks at the end of July to help build a house for an African family.

In the last 18 months, the 29-year-old and her friends have organised fund raising events including bag–packing at supermarkets, cake sales, raffles, sponsored walks and even clay pigeon shooting.

She said they are £2,000 short of their target of £17,600 and each has to raise £1,600.

Hannah, who works for Liverpool City Council, said: "We have planned the trip to Zambia through the charity Habitat for Humanity to assist local tribesmen build affordable and decent homes for their families.

"Habitat for Humanity is supporting the building of homes in many countries, using local labour supported by groups willing to give up some time to assist in house building in a community setting.

"The homes are constructed of brick walls and corrugated roof, with materials costing several hundred pounds."

Hannah said she is prepared to live in the cramped conditions – a world apart from her own three bed semi-detached home – while visiting and will be staying in a 500 sq ft empty cement property.

She is particularly looking forward to meeting the local children, who – she is told - play day and night and make homemade jump rope with corn husks, play jacks with rocks, and use the dirt to spell their name to visiting volunteers.

In the last organised event, she and her friends put their target practice skills to the test at a day’s clay pigeon shooting at Raby House Farm in Willaston.

"The event was split into two, with a morning session and an afternoon session and approximately 80 people in total attended," she said.

"There was no competition as such, but everybody was given a score card to identify if they had a hit or a miss. We had loads of fun.

"There were five stations in total and people were told to have five shots at three stations. I did a lot better than I thought I would, put it that way!

Habitat for Humanity was founded by Millard Fuller, who died in February this year.

To find out more about the charity, visit www.habitatforhumanity.co.uk.