A TEAM of colleagues will travel to Ghana in an effort to help teach children and their families life skills.

Four members of the Braintree-based Caring Direct team - Kayleigh Morales Brown, 32, Mark Brown, 52, Farris Eastwood, 27, and Alex Anderson, 22 – will visit the city of Kumasi between June 25 and July 3.

The team will be testing children and their relatives for HIV and hepatitis B, as well as providing hepatitis vaccinations.

Miss Anderson, a care co-ordinator, said: “This has been on our bucket list for some time now and we have started planning it recently.

“Hopefully we can make a difference and see the children’s smiles as a reflection.

“We will be visiting families and assessing living conditions in the nearby village to see if they qualify for placement at the Brightlingsea free school, founded by Porridge and Pens charity.”

The group, who have worked together at Caring Direct since 2010, will be helping to set up family health cards for treatments with the nearest hospital.

One of the problems they will be working to tackle is the caning of children in the community.

Miss Anderson said: “We will be teaching parents and teachers in the community not to cane children, but to teach them life and working skills.

“We will also visit the Mother Theresa orphanage where many children have nothing at all and setting toys up that we shipped over in February and arrived in the Easter holidays.

“Boots2Africa have also contacted us as they have seen our planned trip and have asked us to distribute as many football boots and kits as we possibly can to the children in Africa.”

The trip will cost about £1,500 per person, which includes vaccinations, visa costs, flights and insurance.

To donate visit their individual Go Fund Me pages: gofundme.com/ej6ap8-my-volunteer-trip, gofundme.com/d9hssw-my-volunteer-trip or gofundme.com/brpgq-my-volunteer-trip.