FARMERS and builders from Essex and Suffolk yesterday set off on a 16,000-mile mission to improve sanitation for some of the world's poorest people.The team of ten intrepid travellers - who set off from the village green in Great Bentley - hope to raise £60,000 for WaterAid, an organisation that provides safe drinking water to people in the Third World.

FARMERS and builders from Essex and Suffolk set off on a 16,000-mile mission to improve sanitation for some of the world's poorest people on Boxing Day.

The team of ten intrepid travellers - who set off from the village green in Great Bentley - hope to raise £60,000 for WaterAid, an organisation that provides safe drinking water to people in the Third World.

The group, which is travelling by Land Rover, will pass through Europe and down the eastern spine of Africa.

The mission was conceived following the loss of one of the team's home-based support squad, Vanessa Botterill, who died of Malaria in Kenya at the age of 24 in 1997.

George Wright, spokesman for the group, said: “This made us appreciate how lucky we are to have all the water and sanitation we need and jolted us out of our complacency into thinking how we might help those not so fortunate.

“Looking for suitable ways to help we discovered the amazing work that WaterAid is doing and feel that supporting this charity by raising money and awareness was the best thing we could do.”

The journey - being undertaken by George Wright, Ben Parker, Ken and Tom Brown, Geoff Parker, Sam Lawrence, Robert Macdonald, Barry Thurlow, Thomson Mitchell and Adam Brown - is expected to last nine weeks.

The group will meet up with Andrew Poole and Sharon Peck, who will be in a separate Land Rover, at Lusaka in Zambia.