BIG-HEARTED Jasber Singh has always wanted to step forward and help poor people in the Third World.

So it was an dream come true when he went on a sponsored trek for Oxfam in aid of poverty-stricken areas in Africa.

Jasber, 40, from Billinge, Blackburn, went trekking with the Masai tribe on an ancient elephant migration trail across the Rift Valley, in Central Africa.

Led by experienced guides, Jasber also climbed the extinct Losimingori volcano, walked through the ancient oasis of Silela Forest and visited a Masai village.

At the end of the six-day trek, he also visited two Oxfam funded projects, the first a school in Kibera, near Nairobi, the largest illegal slum settlement in Africa, and Penedkezo Letu, a project in the Tika region of Kenya that helps street children.

Jasber, a project manager at Sappi paper mill, said: "Kibera is a really desperate place, a scary place. They don't have any water, no roads, sewers, electricity, schools, they don't have anything. The police don't even go in there.

"You are going in as a Westerner and you think you may not get out."

To take part in the Oxfam challenge, Jasber - who lives with wife Narinder, son Kaval, 18, and daughter Krishna, 16 - had to raise £2,500 in sponsorship. But his significant efforts, including corporate sponsorship, resulted in a staggering £7,000.

He said: "I support a lot of charities and I've wanted to do something like this for a long time. I considered working with UNICEF and in the long term I'd like to work with them, Greenpeace or Oxfam.

"This was a good chance to see Oxfam projects at ground level and I must say the camps we visited was the hardest hitting part of the trek.

"They work with nothing but just keep going. It is a fantastic conviction those people have that we just don't see in the West.

"We walked between eight and 11 hours a day and it was tiring but you don't moan so much because you know what you are getting out of it. If it was twice as hard I would have still done it, it was worth the pain. The Masai experience is one that I will always cherish. To live this uncorrupted lifestyle and the experience of Masai dance, humour and companionship are things that will remain entrenched in my memory forever."

The money Jasber has raised will help Oxfam to refurbish and extend schools, supply textbooks and pay teachers enabling an additional 1000 Kibera children to attend school.