AN INSPIRATIONAL young woman from South Lakeland will be making her first trip abroad to help women, children and the disabled in Africa.

In January, Yasmin Azarya, from Kendal, will be travelling to Ghana for three months to help empower the local people in order to allow them basic human rights.

18-year-old Yasmin, who is currently on a gap year, said: “Inequality is still a big problem in the 21st century. I wanted to help out somewhere and I had the time and resources to do it. People have mortgages and things like that, not everyone can just take three months out.”

“My family has been really, really supportive”, said Yasmin, whose grandmother Jenny Baker has been volunteering in South Africa for the past three years.

“I have never been abroad on my own. I’m really looking forward to doing this.”

Yasmin’s place on this scheme has been 95 per cent funded by the Government and a previous volunteer's fundraising.

She is currently raising £800 for the International Citizenship Service to allow future volunteers to continue the work the service does both home and away.

As part of her fundraising, Yasmin had the biggest haircut in her entire life and donated the hair to the Little Princess Trust, a charity that creates and gives wigs to children who have lost their hair due to cancer treatment.

Instead of the original plan to cut seven inches off her locks, Yasmin had eleven inches snapped by the Lane Hair and Beauty in Kendal, who donated the haircut for free.

Yasmin’s Justgiving page can be found at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Yasmin-Azarya