A Monmouth-based charity has shipped supplies including bicycles and a tractor to a town in West Africa.

Hands Around The World (HATW) has been working in the town of Affame, in Benin, for about a decade.

During that time the charity has helped set up a health centre and has shipped a number of practical items to the towns including medical supplies and pencils.

The most recent project involved building five classrooms, previously susceptible to flooding, on stilts.

Another feature of HATW's work in Affame, an area where the trafficking of orphans is a very real problem, has been to help young people to school.

Since HATW members Geoff Burnett and Dick Wheelock have been making trips to the town, they have seen 48 orphans go to secondary school.

Seven have taken up apprenticeships and four are now at university.

The bicycles will be used to help the children, some of whom have to travel 12 to 15 kilometres each way, to get to school.

The tractor, plough and harrow, expected to arrive in Benin at the beginning of August, will be used by Dieudonne Kakpo and his right-hand man Albert. The two have worked with HATW for a number of years.

Geoff said the next step was to develop an orphanage and training centre, with the emphasis as always being on developments that are self-sustaining.