A Hitchin man who travelled to Africa to help build a centre for victims of violence has returned home after his caring efforts for charity ActionAid.

Graham Pither from Alexandra Road spent a week in Mozambique working alongside local people to construct a base which will help victims of suffering.

Dad Graham said: “Monday to Friday was mainly spent on the building site with our alarms going off just before 6am and returning to the hotel at around 5pm to 6pm each evening.

“Our work involved clearing the land that was next to a hospital, digging foundation trenches, moving hard core and laying mixing cement and foundation walls.

“We also made the metal supports for the concrete pillars and concreted these into the foundation trenches.

“Some of our team spent the time clearing the land by the hospital to create a vegetable garden. We bought 10 fruit trees and planted these.

“The last day was very hot. As I mixed the cement at 8.45am in the sun I had sweat dripping off my nose.

“The local builders were on site throughout doing all the tricky stuff – marking out the building and checking that we were doing everything right.

“Work will continue until it is finished in the spring. We were generally injury free although one person was bitten by a poisonous millipede and was very ill for 24 hours.

“When we arrived the regional government officials welcomed us by sacrificing a goat and two chickens.

“Later people told us of the domestic and sexual abuse they had suffered and how ActionAid had managed to involve the community leaders, police and courts to come to their aid.”

You can support Graham’s efforts by visiting the www.justgiving.com website and searching ‘Graham-Pither’.