A CARING dad has launched a website to help wipe out poverty and save the rainforests after his young daughter asked: "Why do people go hungry when we have lots of food in our country?"

Gareth Ford-Williams, 33, of Nuttall Lane, Ramsbottom, is the driving force behind a new website which aims to help alleviate Third World poverty and slow down the destruction of the rainforests. When his daughter, Molly May Ford-Williams, six, put the stark question to her dad earlier this year, he tried to explain that social and environmental problems such as poverty couldn't be solved overnight.

Gareth said: "How do you explain to a six-year-old child that even mummy, daddy and the police can't stop the rainforests being chopped down and children starving?"

This was when Gareth, business development manager at design consultancy DA in Huddersfield, decided to look at ways in which he could make a difference.

He added: "I don't want my kids to grow up thinking there's nothing they can do to help the world, even a little bit.

"There's always something you can do, it's just finding it.

"That is where the idea for the website, www.makethatdifference.com, came from."

He decided to launch a portal to bring together free donation websites -- helping people to donate for free to a number of charities simply by clicking on internet links.

He added: "There are so many worthy causes that the public help every year.

"Through our website it takes just a few minutes to reduce the amount of suffering in the world and help protect our children's future."