A UNIVERSITY student will be swapping her laptop for a rucksack when she travels to a remote part of Africa to help build a community playground.

Charlotte Booth-Hulme, aged 21, of Derwent Street, Leigh, will travel to Ginger, a small village in Uganda, on June 8 with nine others from the University of Hertfordshire, where she is in her last year of studying film and television production.

“The charity we are going with, East African Playgrounds, believes that children in Africa have to grow up a lot quicker than they should and so they try to promote play,” she said.

“As well as building the playground, we will go out into the community and run sports and craft activities with them so they can experience play instead of having to walk miles to get water or look after their younger siblings.

“I am nervous about going because the culture will be so different and we have been told we will have to cover up but that the local people are really friendly and welcoming to new people.”

Charlotte has previous experience of working with children as she used to volunteer at Pathfinder, a youth group at Pennington Church.

“I need to raise £700 but all the money will go towards the materials we need to build the playground, all my travel costs I have saved up myself,” she added.

“It will be weird not being able to communicate with anyone though.

“There will be no wifi, just the odd text to tell my family I’m still alive.”