A GROUP of Penarth youngsters are set to travel to Lesotho to help people caught up in a drought crisis.

Penarth and District Lesotho Trust Youth led by Libby Dwyer will be taking money they have raised over the past year to various schools they are visiting in July.

They will be joined by PADLT trustee Tracey Graham and will report back with updates on the crisis when they return.

The situation in the southern African country was the topic of the latest meeting of the Penarth and District Lesotho Trust (PADLT)

The meeting held on Tuesday, June 21 at Stanwell Road Baptist Church saw Garry Owen from the BBC in attendance as well as Gwenallt Rees who has a long relationship with Lesotho.

S4C recently showed their documentary which illustrates the state of the crisis situation in Lesotho.

The documentary was shown with Mr Owen supplying a live English commentary to the Welsh language programme.

A spokesman for PADLT said: "Very disturbing scenes where shown of the largely rural communities which feeds itself by subsistence farming now facing starvation as the second harvest of their main staple crop of maize has failed.

"Interviews with helpless people were most disturbing to behold."

Also present was Sharon Flint, Education Officer from Dolen Cymru which is the body that officially organises this strong and growing link between Wales and Lesotho.

Many visits have been organised by Dolen Cymru in addition to the self funded visits of church groups, schools, youth groups and PADLT.

As with all similar crisis situations such as in Ethiopia, the only way to help is by making donations of money.

Information for this can be obtained on the Dolen Cymru web site www.dolencymru.org

Information is available on www.padlt.org and on Facebook and Twitter