A WINSTER acupuncturist, who is set to fly to India to provide alternative medical treatment for a community of Tibetan refugees, has enlisted the help of her husband and friends in a fund-raising quest.

With 12 legs between them, Jenny and Gary Craig along with six friends will do a sponsored three mile, three-legged walk down the valley from the Brown Horse, Winster, to the Hare and Hounds, at Bowland Bridge.

Mrs Craig, who is receiving no outside funding for her trip, will travel with five other practitioners to the Karnataka Region of southern India to provide some much-needed medical support for the poverty-stricken families in refuge. Since the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, thousands of Tibetans have fled south to India, many living in refugee camps.

"The Tibetan refugees are very poor and receive very little medical help so I want to do all I can," she said. "As well as raising funds to cover my travel costs, I want to try to raise some money for the community."

Mrs Craig will live and work from the Dhondenling monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat at the centre of the 7,000 strong community, for three weeks in March.

In recent years groups of therapists (osteopaths and acupuncturists) from western countries have been visiting Dhondenling to provide education and health care.

Mrs Craig expects the trip to be challenging in many ways: "I don't think it will be easy and I know I will be confronted with a lot of conditions which I'm unfamiliar with, but these people are so poor and so much in need. I hope this will be a way of helping a lot of people in a relatively short period."

For more information or to make a donation, contact Mrs Craig on 015394-47888.

RIGHT: Jenny and Gary Craig get into shape for their walk. (D4B030SB1)