THE parents of a man killed in a hit-and-run accident in Africa have visited the poverty-stricken school where he worked before his death.

Phil Woodall, 21, of Thorngate, Barnard Castle, County Durham, was struck by a car as he stepped off a bus in the town of Kifaru, in Tanzania, in February.

Jimmy and Susan Woodall have now visited the school where he had been working as a volunteer teacher.

Phil, who graduated from Leeds University in July last year, was teaching in the town, which is in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, as part of a gap year.

After receiving £4,000 donated by their son's friends, Mr and Mrs Woodall went to Africa at the end of last month to give the money to Kifaru Community High School, where he had work- ed.

Mr Woodall said: "We had to go out and see where Phil was; we would not have been able to live with ourselves if we hadn't.

"It wasn't a holiday, and it was very hard, but we knew it would be.

"We wanted to meet the kids and the teachers while they remembered him."

Mrs Woodall said her son had made a lot of friends in the town since he arrived in September, and was known as Phillipo by the locals.

She said: "They said he was kind and caring and a good teacher. He had a lot of time for the children.

"Everyone knew him because of the colour of his hair."

The corrugated roofing of the school's new building was paid for with £1,000 of the money taken over by Mr and Mrs Woodall.

"When we arrived, there was nothing on the roof whatsoever, and by the second day, the roofing panels had arrived and they had started to lay them. It was finished before we left," said Mr Woodall.

A sign on the wall of the new classroom reads: "This building is in memory of Philip David Woodall, our beloved chum."

Phil kept in close contact with his parents and his elder brother, James, while in Tanzania and regularly updated them about the poverty in the country. The couple were shown around the school during their ten-day visit and met the children Phil taught. They saw the basic classrooms, many with no windows and doors.

Mr Woodall said: "I could not believe just what a different world it was. The only electricity is in the headteacher's room and the staff room, and that's only basic.

"The dorms and the classrooms have no electricity whatsoever."

The remaining money that was donated to the school will be spent on solar panels to generate electricity.