TELEPHONING your doctor to make an appointment when you are feeling under the weather is something that can often be taken for granted.

A team of volunteers from Thornbury recently travelled to Kenya to help provide medical care to local people that have never experienced such a luxury.

The team of nine, led by Helen Harrison, a Thornbury town councillor, went to the slum area of Kambiteso, in Eldoret, for two weeks to help run a medical clinic.

Mrs Harrison, 42, said: "The purpose of the outreach team that went was to work alongside existing teams already in Kenya and to support and enhance what they are trying to achieve in the long term.

"Kambiteso is one of the poorest areas. We started the clinic for the people from that area but then they started to come from further afield to be treated because it was free and for a lot of them the first time they would have received medical care."

Organised by aid charity Open Arms International, the group helped run six clinics and treated more than 2,000 people during the two weeks.

"People can say 'What is one clinic for two weeks going to achieve in these people’s lives?' But it can mean three months without intestinal worms so they can eat properly.

"This medical treatment, however limited, can allow them to feel human again for a little bit.

"In the long term Open Arms hopes to provide medical treatment there all year round but in the meantime it is better to do a little bit than nothing at all," said the mother-of-two.

While in Kenya the volunteers also got to work with local children, many of whom have been orphaned. Open Arms International owns land near to Kambiteso where it hopes to build an orphanage.

"A lot of these children come from child-headed households so they have had to grow up far too fast and life for them is just about surviving so allowing them to play and just be children is lovely," said Mrs Harrison.

For more information about Open Arms International visit www.openarms.org.uk or email helen@openarms.org.uk.