PUPILS and staff from Royston High School left for a three week £60,000 expedition to Africa on Tuesday.

Sixteen year ten students and three members of staff set out for Malealea, a remote region of Lesotho in South Africa.

Accompanied by nine pupils and staff from Sheffield's City School, where former teacher Ken Dunn now works, they will build on the work of two previous trips from the school.

The biggest tasks are to divert the watercourse which runs through the graveyard causing repeated bouts of cholera and try to establish enterprise in the village.

The expedition team will try to convince villagers to sell smokeless ovens which would be better for their health and would create income.

Other jobs include planting fruit trees, gardening and hedge planting, repairing the dam built during the first trip and painting the hall in the local school. Pupils will be sleeping in tents and teaming up with orphans who live in Malealea to do the jobs, but despite the heavy workload they will find time for some leisure activities.

Visits have been planned to the Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg, an Alexandra Township tour to Soweto, the Cradle of Mankind and the National Park in Pilanesburg.

Kay Jenkins, headteacher, said: “They have got celebrities on Comic Relief doing less than our kids and look at the hype and publicity that goes with that.

“These kids are doing practical things that are actually helping people in their own communities and empowering them to keep it going.

“The students come back so moved. It is a life changing experience they will carry through their lives.”