A WOMAN who has spent the last three years of her life training Bangladeshi people to become physiotherapists has vowed to continue her charity work for up to another 10 years.

Philomena Commons, a former pupil of Paddock Grammar School in Oswaldtwistle, spoke of her commitment to her voluntary work during a four-day break in Nelson, where she stayed with her mother in Townhouse Road. She will return to the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) near Dhaka on Friday, where as a member of the John Grooms charity for the disabled she trains students to degree level.

Her first trainees graduated from the Training Institute of CRP this year and were the first Bangladeshi people to have received the state-honoured qualification.

She said: "Bangladesh is one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world and although they have doctors and nurses there are no therapeutical services. I was aware of that when I went.

"I came back home and got a Masters Degree and spent two years training as a teacher at the McKenzie Institute International in New Zealand and now run postgraduate courses in Bangladesh in spinal injuries.

"I'm planning to stay at least another five years until I have done my PhD and maybe up to 10 years.

"If you're training people it is a long-term commitment and so long as my life is going OK I'd like to give that commitment."