A newly established charitable group is aiming to make a difference to socially and economically disadvantaged children in India and Kenya.

Friends Against Poverty has been working in Weymouth, Portland and Dorchester to collect books.

The new charity is working to support the work of four other like-minded charities (CarEducation Trust, Hope4Smile, Shishukunj London and Kundanpur Youth Wing) which have arranged a book collection drive with the aim of collection 40,000 books for underprivileged children in Kenya and India.

Dipan Shah, chairman of Friends Against Poverty, said: “For this project, we are supporting the work of 4 registered charities to collect old school books (old syllabus, old edition etc.) to send abroad to underprivileged children in India & Kenya.

"Working locally in Weymouth, Portland and Dorchester with Garry James, Brian Reynolds and Paul Gale we aim to collect 500 books and send these to the London based charities who will be shipping the books abroad.

"It’s a great project that provides reading and learning materials to poorly resourced schools and teachers abroad whilst reducing the waste and cost for disposing of these books to our schools.

"We‘re very grateful to St Andrew’s CE Primary School and The Thomas Hardye School for being amongst the first schools locally to donate books to support this project."

The charities are looking for schools, libraries and other organisations that are able to donate educational books that are no long of use.

For more information, or for people who want to get involved, email Dipan on dipanshah37@gmail.com