AN APPLEBY woman is tempting food-lovers in the town with spicy curry and crispy pakoras to help disadvantaged children in India.

Residential home support worker Jessie Oddy is hosting Indian cookery evenings at villages across Eden to raise money for an orphanage in the Tamil Nadhu region of India where she grew up.

She came up with the idea when she visited her home village with her husband Alan and they witnessed the poor conditions in a tribal orphanage where the children are left by their parents to be cared for by nuns.

"There was one girl who lifted up her top and she was all marked because she had been tied to a tree while her parents were away during the day. It is the same village where I grew up but I didn't know what a tribal orphanage was," she said.

The meat for the demonstrations has been donated by local butchers Norman and Jean Dowding and she is now trying to set the venture up as a registered charity, Curry Aid.

Mrs Oddy has already raised more than £1,000 from three curry evenings and hopes to have raised around £2,500 the next time she visits India.

If anyone would like information how to hold a curry evening, call 017683-51227.