THE headquarters of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva is the destination for a Radcliffe couple who want to improve the lot of the world's poor.

Mr Les Johnson (55) and his wife, Kathleen (53), of Chapeltown Road, will travel to Switzerland on Monday (June 11) as part of a deputation of the the World Development Movement.

This is a 30-year-old organisation that campaigns for a fairer deal for the world's poor.

"We first got interested in it from a Christian point of view, through a fund-raising hunger lunch," explained Mrs Johnson, who along with her husband is a member of Radcliffe's St Thomas and St John Church.

The group has been offered appointments with World Trade Organisation officials during the two-day visit. It hopes to raise questions about how the poor benefit from introducing international competition into services such as health, education, and water supply and it intends to question how poorer countries are assisted to play a full and equal part in trade negotiations.

Mr Johnson, a retired nuclear industry worker, said: "We are very concerned that no full assessment has yet been carried out on the longer-term impacts of liberalised world trade on vulnerable communities, those that suffer from poor health and education, inadequate infrastructure, and a chronic lack of spending power."