VOLUNTEERS from Darwen will put up 12 floodlights to provide people in an African village with a way of playing football in the evenings.

The Football Gambia charity will head out to the west African country later this month to carry out a number of initiatives, including the floodlights in the village of Sitanunku.

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It is the fourth time volunteers from the town have gone out to Gambia with the charity, which promotes educating and developing communities in the country through football.

Leading this year’s key project, Mark Atkinson will travel out a week early on January 24.

He will be joined by Brian Turner, from Marsh House Lane-based Camera Tower Engineering, who has made the floodlights free of charge and paid for them to be shipped out.

The pair will install the 5ft tall floodlights and wire them up, before being joined a week later by the rest of the volunteers who will spend a fortnight concreting them in place – by hand.

Mr Atkinson said: “We have had to go a week earlier as a few volunteers from outside of Darwen have dropped out because of the health scares in Africa.

“It is disappointing because Gambia has not been affected and, if it had, they wouldn’t be putting flights on.

“There was going to be an electrician and some others going over early to install them and then we were going out after to concrete them in and then look at some other projects.

“But because there are fewer of us, we probably won’t have time to do anything else now.

“There was certainly nothing stopping us going out. We just want to get over there and get them in.

“Once the floodlights are in, the villagers can play football at night and put on training and matches for youngsters and matches with other villages.”

The volunteers will also hand over donated football kits to youngsters and put on some football coaching sessions.

The annual trips to Gambia led to Darwen being twinned with the town of Lamin last year and a party to celebrate the twinning will be held while the volunteers are there.

A party will also take place on Wednesday, January 14, at the Bridgewater pub in Church Street, although organisers are looking for an African-themed band to perform.

The group is also looking for any last-minute donations towards the costs of the trip.

Contact Mr Atkinson on 07849 434052.