UNTIL 1992 Veronica Kilasi lived a normal existence with her husband and children. Then she met a Tanzanian evangelist and was inspired to spend her life helping others. She tells Gayle McBain her remarkable story.

VERONICA Kilasi is a woman with a mission. Her all consuming passion is to help poverty-stricken children in Tanzania to reclaim their childhood.

Veronica combats crippling back pain to make annual journeys to Tanzania to bring joy to impoverished families.

And she describes her work as "a calling".

Her desire to help others less fortunate than herself came after visiting the East African country in 1992 with her then husband and their children.

"I wanted to show my children their roots. My husband was Tanzanian."

After becoming a born-again-Christian in 1997 and being inspired by a Tanzanian evangelist, Veronica met "purely by chance", she knew it was her role in life to help others.

"So many things had happened by chance it became clear that I had to help people in Tanzania," she said.

For several years now the 42-year-old, who lives in Tonge Moor, has been visiting the country, usually alone, taking footballs and other equipment in the hope that she can give the youngsters their childhood back.

"Many children in Tanzania don't have a childhood. Once they are old enough to help their parents that's what they have to do. You see five-year-olds carrying babies on their backs. They don't have a childhood and I wanted to give them that," she said.

The townsfolk of Mwanza started to look forward to Veronica's visits.

Then, as word of Veronica's kindness started to spread in Bolton, the town's Lads and Girls Club decided to become involved.

The club, based in Spa Road, provided footballs and bibs for Veronica's latest visit and this year are planning more help.

All the money raised from the club's end of season awards day - to be held in June - will benefit Veronica's children in Tanzania, providing them with more football equipment.She says: "I desperately need trainers for the children. They can't use football boots because the ground is too hard.

"You see children running around with one shoe on the foot they kick the ball with because they haven't got two shoes. They are just so resourceful."

Before Veronica provided the children with footballs they often had to use bits of plants tied together with banana leaves.

When Veronica travels to Tanzania she is always moved by the people's ability to make the most of what little they have.

"They can make things they need out of anything they find lying around.," she said.

The treatment of the sick is of particular concern to Veronica, especially the many lepers.

"People there don't touch lepers. I make it my passion to touch the untouched and love the unloved," she said.

During her last visit Veronica saw a leper pushed in to the middle of the road.

"In Tanzania if you get run over, it's just too bad. I saw this man and I couldn't just leave him. I helped him to safety.

"While I was there last year one of the street children was killed. It's just so sad to think how cheap life is over there."

Veronica's younger daughter, Zena, aged 20, went with her on the trip, last November, and was pleased to be able to help.

She particularly enjoyed helping the street children who do not have families to take care of them or homes to live in.

Veronica says: "I think it would be a fantastic exercise to take young people to Africa to see how other people live. I could guarantee that those young people would come back changed by what they have seen and I mean changed for the better.

"It would make them realise what they have and what other people don't have."

She described her mission to help the people as "a burning burden within me. It's like I have something worrying me all the time. I know I have to help these people and it helps to keep me going through all my health problems."

Many of the people Veronica helps live in homes made of clay walls and corrugated iron roofs. Some, in the villages she has visited, live in mud huts.

The people are proud and do not complain. Their children go to school, if their parents can afford it, wearing uniforms covered with ground-in dirt.

They do not have pictures on the classroom walls and they do not have books, but they are thrilled to go to school and to learn. "They are amazing people," said Veronica.

Veronica, who also has a 23-year-old daughter, Shani and a son, Shabani, aged 18, also uses her trips to Tanzania to preach the gospel - another huge passion.

She gets villagers flocking to her open air crusades.

The people in Mwanza are poor almost beyond comprehension.

On their recent visit Zena was approached by a woman with a tiny baby. "She asked Zena to take the baby home with her. She couldn't afford to keep her daughter. It was so sad to think that she would give away her own child," said Veronica.

Now Veronica's visits are becoming well known, here in Bolton she receives donations from generous members of the public, which help her to buy the things the people in Mwanza need, including the basic necessity of food.

The people are also extremely grateful for old mobile telephones. "It doesn't matter how old they are, they appreciate them so much because they don't have landlines," said Veronica.

It has never been Veronica's goal to become a heroine but, it has to be said, to the people of the little town in Tanzania that is exactly what she has become.

She says modestly: "I just do what I can. I will never give up trying to help.

"I struggle with terrible back pain but this is something I have to do. Even if I had to travel to Tanzania with sticks to help me walk I would have to do that ," she said.

Anyone who would like to help Veronica can contact her on 07917 003639 or email veronicakilasi@hotmail.com