A VICAR from Dorset will swap the West Country for the West Bank when he jets off to Palestine to be a human rights monitor.

The Rev Jonathan Herbert will spend a three-month humanitarian and monitoring mission with the World Council of Churches in Jayyous near the West Bank’s western border.

Mr Herbert has worked for the Pilsdon Manor Christian community near Bridport for 13 years and latterly for the Hilfield Friary near Dorchester since September.

Now the father-of-three is set to live in a shared room in a small village in the West Bank, monitoring checkpoints for human rights violations and counselling locals.

He said: “This was something I have been thinking about going to do for the past few years.

“I recently met a member of the Iona community who came back from a three-month placement in the occupied Palestine territories and I decided that I would apply as well.”

Mr Herbert, 47, went through a stringent selection process, including a day’s assessment at a Quaker house in London, to become one of around 20 monitors from various countries who will live in the West Bank for three-months giving help directly to local people.

As part of his training, Mr Herbert has been learning more about human rights and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as learning basic Arabic and Hebrew.

He added: “I’m hoping to learn more Arabic while I’m out there and I plan to teach English as well.

“This is a great role for the church to undertake.

“I will be getting up at about 4am most days to monitor check points to ensure people’s human rights are not being violated and to offer them protection just by my presence as an observer.

“I’m not really scared but I suppose I am a little anxious since it could be dangerous.”

Mr Herbert, who is originally from Lancashire, will live in a shared house with other monitors from Canada and Norway and will regularly document his work for the World Council of Churches by taking photographs.

He added: “I’m reassured that I’m going to live in a village of some 3,500 people and there is a history of international aid workers living there, so I feel very well-supported in the work that I’m going to do.”

Mr Herbert also undertook a six-week, 500-mile pilgrimage around Christian sites in northern Spain in 2009, describing it as his ‘mid-life gap year’.