A MIDDLEWICH teenager is embarking on a fundraising drive, having been selected to represent the Girlguides in a volunteer’s trip to Malawi next year.

Thirteen-year-old Leah Smelt, of Nantwich Road, will travel to Africa in under a year to help teach less fortunate children how to read and write English.

Leah, a Middlewich High School pupil, was put through a two-stage selection process in Sandiway and then Clitheroe, before being selected to work alongside the Book Bus Charity.

Leah said: “I was feeling quite nervous and I wasn’t expecting anything much to come of it. I just knew that I had to try my best and help out with everything.

“When I got the letter through I was quite excited. We will be helping children read books, and it’s all voluntary.

“It will just be a great experience. I am nervous for the injections, but once that’s out of the way I will be alright.”

Because the trip is voluntary and charitable, Leah will have to raise the £1,800 needed to travel by next spring.

Having already received two generous donations from a local nursery and the rotary club, Leah is now looking to raise money by other methods including coffee mornings and bag packing.

Leah’s parents, Karen and Ian, say the experience will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for their daughter, who started at Winsford Brownies aged seven before moving onto Winsford Girlguides.

Ian said: “We were overjoyed. She is the youngest out of the girls that are going, significantly younger than some of the others.

“To send off your little one is worrying in one way but it’s an opportunity that we can’t not let her take.

“To a lot of people it will be a once in a lifetime opportunity – it’s not something we could just offer her.”

While Leah is at the beginning of her fundraising drive, she is planning to set up an online donations page and accept donations via Middlewich High School and Winsford Girlguiding.