A SMALL team of charity workers are to head to Bulgaria this month as part of an inspiring project to improve the lives of orphans in Bulgaria.

An advance party of four members of the House of Rachel charity team will held to Krivnya Orphanage on April 14 to prepare for a major renovation project at the orphanage.

On April 29, a team of ten men and women from the Okehampton area will head to the orphanage to undertake some essential maintenance work aimed at improving the lives of children with special educational needs who live there. The team will concentrate on three main areas: building, decorating and IT.

Charity founder Andrew Morgan said: 'Our vehicle will be packed out with all sorts of donations received from the good people of Okehampton, including the duvet covers collected following a recent campaign for them. We received 85 covers in the end.

'We will also be carrying the computers we are donating, plus all sorts of building bits and pieces required for the main job.

'While we are there we will be buying and delivering to the site everything we need for the builders to complete the work when they arrive.

'We will also be catching up on older projects. We will meet the mayor of Provadia to "inspect" the orphanage there and see how the work we did in 2010 is bearing fruit.

'The orphanage now functions as a rehabilitation day centre for orphaned and abandoned children rather than a place to live.

'Our own mayor Cllr the Rev Mike Davies will be writing a letter of greeting for us to deliver to the Provadia mayor. We are also visiting the summer school project we started last year.'

The building team will fix the roofs, ceilings and floors and upgrade the extremely basic toilet facilities.

The decorating team will paint the grey dormitories to make them bright, vibrant bedroom spaces, and the IT team will install the donated computers to aid the children's education.

To find out more about the charity visit http://www.­houseofrachel.org">www.­houseofrachel.org