A 22-year-old chemistry graduate from Cradley Heath is preparing to jet off to Peru to help save street children from the horrors of gang crime.

Jaiya Bhandari will spend a month in the shanty town of Villa Maria with the charity Quest4Change which works to relieve financial hardship and poverty, especially among children.

The Nottingham University graduate, who will train as an accountant with leading firm Ernst and Young in London from next September, will spend her time working with a youth club providing activities to draw children away the drugs and crime culture.

Jaiya, of Bishop’s Walk, will also be involved in building homes, providing sanitation facilities and, hopefully, in extension plans at a school.

She is swatting up on basic Spanish and will spend her first three weeks of her three-month Peruvian adventure on a crash course learning the language.

The former Wolverhampton Grammar School student will spend the last month of her trip, which starts in January, travelling the South American country.

“I’m really nervous. For a month I am not going to have any facilities, not a proper shower or bath. I do like my make up - I’m a bit of a princess when it comes to things like that,” she said.

But Jaiya is keen to “give something back” and is looking forward to working with the children, having spent three days at an orphanage in Ecuador during a climbing expedition when she was 17.

“When I left I thought to myself, what a waste of time, just being there for three days when I could have spent longer there and made a difference,” said Jaiya, who is attracted to that part of the world by the friendly people and the culture.

She is currently working as a private chemistry and maths tutor and has almost reached the minimum £700 she has to collect for the charity thanks to family and friends, but hopes to raise more.

Anyone interested in sponsoring her can do so online at www.virginmoneygiving.com/jaiyabhandari. She can be contacted by email at jaiya.bhandari@gmail.com