A FAMILY of swimming teachers are returning to a tsunami-hit region of Sri Lanka in a bid to give women their own rights as newly-qualified instructors.

As reported in the Marlow Free Press, Christina Fonfe jetted off to the coastal town of Weligama in February to help women school teachers to swim.

Mrs Fonfe, of Henley Road, Marlow, is working with volunteer group the Aid Sri Lanka Foundation, and aims to turn the teachers into swimming instructors.

However, she returned to Marlow in the summer to do fundraising for the project and qualify her young Sri Lankan translator as an instructor.

Now the translator, Inki Abeyrathna, has returned home after passing her qualification, and this month will see Mrs Fonfe also return to the country.

Mrs Fonfe is hoping to establish the first-ever women's swimming association in the country.

Her actions were triggered by an Ox-fam report which said four times more women than men died in the tsunami because they were unable to swim.

She said the next step will see the women qualify as instructors before she attempts to eventually hand over the project to the Sri Lankans themselves.

But she will not be without help as her two children, who are also swimming teachers, will join her efforts in December for a month.

She will be joined by son, James, 18 and daughter, Alix, 20, both part-time instructors for the Quad Club, Marlow.

Husband Mike will travel with his children to teach English at a local school.

Alix, a medical student at Kings College, London, said: "I can't wait for it. I have heard so much about the region."

James, who was previously in Weligama with his mother, said: "You are teaching people who don't speak the same language as you, and you have to do a lot more demonstrations."

If you wish to donate essential funds for the swimming project email michael.fonfe@onetel.net