A STUDENT from Beaconsfield, who raised more than £1,000 for the tsunami fund, is travelling to Sri Lanka to help rebuild a village destroyed in the disaster.

Melissa Brandon, 20, of Grove Road, and her friend Jessica Bloomfield, 21, from Somerset, have given up their summer holidays to work for the charity in charge of helping to rebuild the small fishing village of Ambalangoda, near the city of Galle.

Melissa said: "I am really looking forward to it seeing where the money we raised has gone.

"We will be doing all sorts of things like helping rebuild and helping out in the orphanage."

The two degree students, who study at Warwick University, knew they wanted to do som-ething to help as soon as they heard about the tragedy on Boxing Day last year.

Melissa said: "We are students and could not give a lot of money ourselves.

"We really wanted to do something so we put on the play."

Melissa and Jessica raised £1,300 by putting on a production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. They produced and directed, as well as designing the costumes for the show put on at their university in March.

Melissa said: "We charged £5 per ticket and made £13,000. We were really pleased with that."

Although she has never visited Sri Lanka before she grew up in India and has many friends who were affected by the tsunami.

She said: "I was with my sister in Singapore when it happened, she had lots of friends who were affected and Jessica spent some time in a similar small village in her gap year."

The pair will be working for the charity for the next month before returning to their final year at university.