AN Appleton woman will be Botswana-bound in March after preparing to fight the AIDS epidemic head on in the poverty-stricken Third World.

Andrea Drury, aged 23, will travel to southern Africa as a volunteer of the Total Control of the Epidemic programme, run by the organisation Humana People to People.

Andrea has participated in a wide range of volunteer programmes in the past, including working on a building project in the Philippines and taking part in a 10-day mountain bike ride in Patagonia, South America, to raise money for Sense, the national society for the deaf and blind.

In preparation for her trip to Botswana, Andrea is currently halfway through a four-month training period at a school in Denmark, during which she has intensely studied HIV and AIDS-related issues in a truly international team of 10 members from Argentina, England, Finland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Poland and Sweden.

Andrea said: "The TCE programme is very impressive in its organisation and structure. The chance of getting AIDS under control may seem small, but TCE has set concrete and realistic goals to turn the dream into a reality.

"The aim of this project is for the local population to get the epidemic under control by house-to-house and person-to-person counselling."

This is a huge task, as almost 50 per cent of the population in Botswana is HIV positive, making it one of the worst-hit places in Africa.

The African TCE projects have won acclaim across the continent and a similar scheme in neighbouring Zimbabwe received the Arabic Gulf Fund for the most innovative community-based AIDS programme.

In Botswana, Minister of Health Joy Phumaphi said: "TCE is really holding the key."