A LOCAL BT apprentice engineer has been chosen for the trip of a lifetime to Africa in June.

Kiim Green, who lives at Bow, near Crediton, is part of a young charity taskforce swapping their computers and day jobs for hard manual labour on a series of community projects in Tanzania.

They will help build a water reservoir and a remote medical facility, provide solar power for a school in the remote region of Lokisale built by a previous BT group in 2008, provide pupils with laptops and teach them IT skills.

Kiim, who is 25, has worked for BT's local network business Openreach since September 2008. He is based at BT's Telephone Engineering Centre on the Exeter Business Park.

He said of his venture: "This is going to be the trip of a lifetime.

"It's a chance to make a real difference to those in our chosen communities in Tanzania, who are much less fortunate than us.

"It's a massive challenge, but also an amazing personal opportunity.

"Everyone who completes the challenge will gain an NVQ certificate in leadership skills and the vast majority of BT people who have taken part in earlier years have seen their careers advance as a result of the skills they've gained.

"Being able to witness what can be done with the money we are raising and see first hand how it can change people's lives will be wonderfully rewarding.

"We will be helping to give children a better start to their life in an area where they often die young."

In total 32 BT people from across the UK will make the trip to East Africa in support of the charity Challenge Worldwide – Training for Life. They are all current and former apprentices and graduates.

Each must raise at least £3,500 to self-fund the 10-day "Challenge Tanzania" trip and the projects, which also include launching a new food programme for a remote school near Lake Natron and supporting an ongoing feeding programme for St Lazarus School in the slums of Nairobi.

Kiim's fund-raising plans included bag packing at Crediton's new Tesco store with about 12 other BT apprentices on Friday March 26.

He will also be competing in the Bristol 10K run on Sunday May 9, in aid of his fundraising appeal with fellow apprentice, Chris Bragg, who is from Crediton.

Alan Quick