AN ARDROSSAN teen has been offered the experience of a lifetime volunteering in orphanages and schools in South Africa for a year and needs to raise over £6,000 to make her dream a reality.

Ailis Tracy, a sixth-year pupil at St Matthew’s Academy, has just been accepted onto the Project Trust’s South Africa Gap Year programme and is heading off to the Rainbow Nation next summer.

But the caring 17-year-old needs to raise £6,200 to cover training, return flights, insurance, accommodation and other costs and so she has been busy organising a series of fundraisers.

Ailis told the Herald: “I’m overjoyed to have been selected for this experience.

“ I’m going to be working in orphanages and teaching in schools for a year and to allow me to participate in this chance of a lifetime, I need to raise £6,200.

“A volunteer came to my school and spoke about it and I just thought it would be such a good experience to help people. I’m looking forward to experiencing other cultures and how other people live. There are 11 languages spoken in South Africa, including English, and it is a very multi-ethnic society.

“In June I go for a week of intensive training, then I go. I’ll definitely miss all my friends, that will be hard. A few people have said they’ll come and visit me when I’m there but we’ll see!

“My family and friends have all been really supportive of me and said they will go to all my events. To raise the £6,200 I’ll need to work extremely hard and to allow me to succeed I’m organising a cabaret night, a race night, an Irish night and lots of smaller events. My mum is also doing a sponsored run.

“South Africa might sound a bit scary because you’re always hearing about things happening there but there is always someone from Project Trust with you. And Project Trust have been running this for 50 years and there’s never been any trouble.

“I won’t know the details of where I’ll be staying until May.

“Some people stay with a host family, some are given a flat but there’s always a Project Trust member nearby.”

The Project Trust is a registered charity which sends around 300 young volunteers abroad to Africa, Asia and South America every year. Ailis explained to the Herald why she wanted to go to an African country: “When you think of Africa, you always hear about people who are in desperate need of help and I like helping people. South Africa is a wealthy country but there’s also a lot of poverty.

“I’m looking forward to helping children who are in need. Also, my gran lived in Ethiopia in the early 60s because her husband worked there and she talks about Africa all the time.”

Ailis’ mum Ailsa Tracy is proud of her daughter and of her determination to take on such a challenging venture. She said: “You’re only young once. I say she should just go for it.”

Ailis is holding a fundraising cabaret night on Saturday, October 22 at St Peter’s Church in Ardrossan.

For more details, follow Ailis’ Year Volunteering in South Africa Facebook page here.

To help Ailis raise the money for her South African challenge, visit her fundraising page here.