A COLLEGE lecturer is visiting the Amazon basin to help poverty-stricken schools.

Peter Mulligan, who works at the City of Sunderland College, the fifth biggest institution of its kind in the UK, is flying to Brazil to visit tiny schools in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

The plan is to exchange arts, crafts and expertise with seven Indian communities and schools he wll be seeing.

The three-week trip, aided by charitable donations from St Cuthbert's RC Church, in Chester-le-Street, will cost about £5,000.

Mr Mulligan, a member of Cafod, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, said: "This money will be used to provide material goods for the schools, which sometimes have literally nothing, but the main emphasis will be on an exchange of ideas and materials.

"The Indians, although poor, have a deep spirituality and strong sense of community and support - values that have been eroded in the West."