A CHARITY which combats drugs and homelessness is to be expanded worldwide to help addicts and destitute children.

Cocaine addicts and street children in Brazil will receive help from the charity for Those on the Margins of Society -- THOMAS -- in the first international project if its kind.

Founder The Rev Jim McCartney, who has recently returned from a research trip to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo, wants to financially support the fight against drugs and deprivation in the New Year.

For eight years the charity has successfully worked to build bridges between the church and people in Blackburn who are struggling with life because of homelessness, addictions, abuse or crime.

But now the charity has sufficient money to run from Government and European funding, Father Jim wants to dedicate cash raised through sponsorship of its magazine Edges for international work, starting in Brazil and hopefully moving to places like India and China.

Father Jim said these were countries where many young people found themselves socially-excluded, with high numbers of people living on the streets or hooked on drugs.

It is hoped that the charity's magazine Edges, with 15,000 published copies per quarter, will provide the link between charity work here and abroad, and will access money from international agencies to help fund the work.

"In Brazil it was clear there were a lot of complex issues needing to be tackled," Father Jim said. "There is a great deal of poverty and deprivation.

"There are few rehabilitation units and there are children as young as ten and 11 having to make the streets their home with no family support.

"When you know there are children who have died of AIDS it makes you feel that there is a need for a global perspective to our work. Thanks to technology there is so much we can do in other countries and we have a duty to look beyond our own world."

The charity was set up in 1994 when Father Jim was a Roman Catholic Priest in the diocese of Salford.

He said: "This would be the first time we've used our position as a link to other agencies abroad. I've visited China, India and Brazil and want to launch an international aspect to the charity to show how we can move forward. Edges helped get the charity going in Blackburn and will be the key to starting another project. It's very exciting."

In Blackburn the charity already runs a drop-in centre at St Annes House in France Street which offers hot meals, advice and rehabilitation to people who need it.

The charity has already been praised by the government's Social Exclusion Unit and recommended as a shining national blueprint.