Students heading to Ecuador for volunteering trip
Two globe-trotting students are heading out on a humanitarian trip to Ecuador and are making one last push to raise the funds they need.
Teigan Castree, 18, and Jessica Archer, 17, of Rugeley, will jet off for a month, once they have completed their A-levels, as part of a 10-strong team with the Hart School.
They will be helping local communities and supporting conservation work in the Amazon, The Andes and the Galapagos Islands.
It comes after the girls previously travelled to Cambodia to take part in a month of voluntary work.
The girls have just £1,400 to raise from their fundraising target of £4,600, with money coming in from a sponsored trek up Snowdon, quiz nights, a Christmas fair, bake-off and other money-spinning activities.
Teigan said: "I am looking forward to travelling to Ecuador this summer, as I feel that it is important to help those less fortunate then ourselves and to try and give something back to the community in order to try and better society.
"I’m especially looking forward to travelling to the Galápagos Islands to learn more about conservation projects they are working on, surrounding issues with plastics in our oceans which I feel is a huge pressing issue that needs to be tackled."
Teigan's mother Tonya said: "I think she's got a bit of fire in her belly. At the age of 16 they went to Cambodia and did a month of volunteer work and built toilets for the community.
"They dug holes are tall as them and were teaching children English, it was full on hard work definitely not a holiday.
"They were so humbled by their experience when they came back and they wanted to volunteer again.
"Since then they've been undertaking volunteer work with the Rugeley Lions, they've got a really good ethos considering they're so young.
"They're going to have a week in the Andes building greenhouses as the local people can't grow in their terrain. Then they've got a week in the Amazon to support forest conservation and then they've got a week in the Galapagos Islands where they will be working to get plastic out of the ocean."
The pair are off on their trip on July 13 for a month and afterwards Teigan hopes to go to Cardiff to study law and Jessica wants to go to Nottingham to study history.
