A shop worker from west Oxfordshire raised £2,000 by slimming to pay for her charity mission to India.

Rosie Dodds, from Foxholes, near Chipping Norton, spent a month with two other county volunteers in Sarberia, a small village in West Bengal, helping to build a school and a vocational training centre for women.

After seeing an Oxford Mail appeal in March for volunteers to travel to the country and help charity Hands Around the World, Miss Dodds, Luke Rowland, from Wantage, and Arthur Bentley, from Ambrosden, near Bicester, decided set about raising the £2,000 needed to fund their trips.

Miss Dodds, who Works in the Co-op store in Milton-Under-Wychwood, said: “I wanted to lose a bit of weight anyway so I set the challenge to my regular customers to pay me for every pound I lost.

“My mum has a garden business as well and I sold some plants to help raise the rest of the money.

“I lost about nine pounds before I left and loads more while I was there.”

The trio, who were joined by another volunteer, Tess Malloy from Cheltenham, flew out to the country on November 15 and spent the month before Christmas working in heat of 31 degrees extending a school and helping to build the centre, which will teach women skills like needle work.

Miss Dodds added: “India is such an amazing place, but the culture is very different out there.

“Children and women often get left out by the education system so I wanted to go out there and see how I could help.

Arthur Bentley, a retired soldier and Ministry of Defence worker, raised the money needed to fund his trip by running the Blenheim 10km race and the Otmoor Challenge half marathon.

He said his time in the country had also inspired him to do more charity work in future.

He added: “I thought it was such a great opportunity to go to an amazing part of the world and do something positive at the same time. “ awilliams@oxformail.co.uk