A GRANDMA from Pendle is gearing up to help build new homes for poverty-stricken communities in the slums of Brazil.

Maggie Randall, 68, of Priestfield Avenue, Colne, will spend two weeks in Campo Largo, as part of a six-strong team of volunteers, whose job it will be to build houses for some of the country's most deprived communities.

The trip has been organised by Mission Direct, a charity which supports locally-led projects among the world’s poorest people.

Maggie, who is a member of the congregation at the Central Gospel Mission, in Goitside, Nelson, has already started raising funds for the trip and preparing for the ordeal of having to sleep in rough conditions.

She was one of 20 people who spent Friday night sleeping beneath a shelter in a mock 'cardboard city' behind the church.

Maggie, a former teacher at Roughlee Primary School, said she was inspired to volunteer for the trip by a piece of ‘junk mail’.

She said: “At first I threw it in the bin, but then something made me pick it up again and when I got to the page about Brazil something just gripped me.”

While in Campo Largo, which is near Sao Paulo, she will help build 50 new houses and help prostitutes and drug addicts.

She said: “Everybody keeps saying I must be very brave, but I have been absolutely terrified. It is getting quite exciting now though.

“I’m hoping my teaching experience will help with the children. I have a lot of teaching material that I could take and leave with them.”

Maggie will jet out to South America on October 23.

To donate funds towards Maggie’s trip call the church on 01282 700058.