A SMALL village in the sweltering heat of equatorial East Africa is the destination of Raglan mother and optician Belinda Dwyer.
Belinda, who lives at The Willows and works in Specsavers in Newport and Cwmbran, has joined a group of members from her local church, The Abergavenny Family Church, on a two week expedition to Uganda.
The group, who work for the charity EZRA, will be staying in the city of Mbale and visiting the nearby village of Bunabutye where they will be helping villagers to build and maintain schools and farms. They will also be meeting the Minister of Health and discussing plans for a well. Conditions are extremely primitive with mud huts, no clinic, no drinking water and no electricity.
Belinda, who has three children - David, who is an optician, and students, Richard and Jenny - will be working mostly with children, carrying out sight tests and fitting those who need them with glasses. Specsavers have provided her with some basic equipment together with 500 pairs of second hand glasses.
Belinda's husband, Haydn, who works as a maths lecturer at Coleg Gwent, Pontypool, said she was looking forward to the trip which was only arranged just before Christmas.
"Two of the group, Mary and Alwyn Griffiths, had formed a school in Bunabutye and at one of their meetings they were all talking about their ambitions and Belinda said she would like to do something with eyes. They said they were going out to Bunabutye quite soon and asked Belinda if she would like to go."
Among the children she will meet is a 13 year old boy called Zam whom Belinda has sponsored for the past three years.