A FORMER Stonyhurst College pupil has given up the comforts of home to work with AIDS orphans in Kenya.

Lucy Harrison, 23, who left the Ribble Valley Jesuit school in 2001, has travelled to the country as part of the Xavier Volunteer Programme run by the Jesuits.

She is working at the Nyumbani Orphanage on the outskirts of Nairobi where she is helping to care for 100 children, the youngest of whom is only 18 months old.

After leaving Stonyhurst, Lucy, who lives in Morpeth, Northumberland, studied biological sciences at Edinburgh University. She is due to spend six months at Nyumbani which was founded more than 10 years ago by Fr Angelo D'Agostino, a Jesuit priest and doctor from the US.

Nyumbani also runs an outreach project in nearby Kibera, Africa's largest slum, which has an 80% HIV infection rate and which featured in the recent hit movie The Constant Gardener.

Fr Dave Stewart, a director of the project, said: "I'm delighted that we now have another volunteer at Nyumbani. Lucy is putting into practice the Jesuit ethos of being 'people-for-others' in a quite exceptional way."

Jonathon Hewat, the college's admissions and marketing manager, said: "Lucy's work will inspire many of our current pupils who are considering taking a year out and working for worthwhile causes as part of the Xavier Volunteer Programme. "