A PLYMOUTH health worker is preparing to walk 24 miles across Dartmoor to raise money for a rehabilitation centre in Bangladesh.

Sue Wayne, a speech and language therapy assistant at Mount Gould Hospital, has already travelled to the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) once, and knows the good that a few extra pounds can do.

"Every pound I take will quadruple in value, because it can buy a lot more there," she said.

Mrs Wayne, 54, from Saltash, first volunteered at the centre between January and March this year, when she went with a group of colleagues after seeing an email calling for people to go there and share their skills.

She said: "No matter how much you prepared and knew what you would face, it was still a stab in the heart when I got there."

CRP, in the town of Savar, is the only organisation of its kind in Bangladesh, a country with a population of 132million. As in most developing countries, about 10 per cent of Bangladeshis are disabled.

But Mrs Wayne said the charitable hospital was clean and well run, and the people there were extremely grateful for the help and medical care they got.

"It's like a little oasis in the middle of all the poverty," she said.

The patients are taught new jobs so they can go out into the community and earn a living.

Mrs Wayne said work-related accidents were very common, and often meant the loss of the breadwinner for a family.

She said: "When we were there last year, there was an electrician there who had received an electric shock when he was up a pole.

"Because of the burns he lost both his arms, and when he fell he broke his back and was paralysed.

"He's been rehabilitated to the point where he's learned to paint with his mouth and earns a good living by selling his paintings."

Mrs Wayne is due to visit the CRP again in March 2009. This time she can only get four weeks off work, having been refused extra leave, but hopes to take money with her to help the hospital.

On Saturday, Mrs Wayne will walk from Princetown to Plymouth to raise money for the CRP.

"Every penny raised will make a huge difference to people's lives. Please give generously," she said.

Donations can be made by sending cheques, payable to Project Bangladesh, to Sue Wayne, 12 Westbourne Terrace, Saltash, Cornwall PL12 6BX.