An African toddler is being reunited with her family for her third birthday - five months after an Oxford woman helped fly her to Canada for potentially life-saving cancer treatment.

Gorata Poonyane, who is suffering a recurrence of the rare childhood eye cancer retinoblastoma, is seeing her father and three sisters for the first time since being admitted to the Hospital for Sick Children, in Toronto.

The family were flown from their home in Botswana by South African Airways free of charge. Flights would normally cost about £5,000.

The donation followed months of campaigning by 28-year-old Abby White of Boundary Brook Road, east Oxford, who helped get Gorata to Toronto after receiving a plea for help via the Internet.

Gorata's mother Salome flew out with her in October, but her father John could not afford to visit.

He and daughters Thabitha, 12, Naledi, six, and Bame, four, are being reunited with Gorata in time for her third birthday on March 17. They were flying to New York yesterday to be met by Miss White, who also suffered retinoblastoma as a child.

The family will then be flown to Toronto by the charity Angel Flight, where they will stay for about six months while Gorata undergoes the rest of her treatment.

Miss White, who flew out to New York on Thursday, said 10 Oxford shops, including Argos, HMV, WHSmith, Thorntons and St Andrew's Christian Bookshop, had donated gifts for Gorata's birthday. More than £20,000 has been raised towards her treatment, which will cost about £120,000.

For more information email abby@daisyfund.org or log on to the Internet at www.orphancancer.org/ Gorata