SCHOOLCHILDREN have raised money to provide fresh water, toilets and trees for an African community.

Year five and six pupils from Richmond Methodist School raised £210 with a charity fun afternoon and a sponsored litter pick in a lane near the school.

Three children, Alice and Lydia Dawes and Kirsty Layfield, also carried out a sponsored car wash.

School governor Julia Carr said: "The project involved classes of children independently investigating and democratically choosing which charity they wanted to support, then as a group deciding among themselves how to raise the money.

"They then organised and conducted the events themselves, overseen by teacher assistants."

The money will pay for 25 trees, four toilets, safe drinking water and buckets for 50 people.

The chosen charity was Oxfam.