Birthday flight to floods zone for graduate

Ingrid Criddle, who graduated in 2008 with a degree in Asia Pacific Studies and International Relations, turned 24 on Saturday, the day she flew to Recife in Brazil with international disaster relief charity ShelterBox.

The charity delivers individual ShelterBox disaster relief tents which contain cooking utensils, a stove, blankets, water purification and storage equipment, a tool kit, a children's activity pack and other vital items.

They are delivered to families in most need immediately after disaster strikes, anywhere in the world.

A total of 600 ShelterBoxes have already been sent to Brazil after flooding left close to 100,000 people homeless in the regions of Pernambuco and Alagoas. Another 460 boxes are set to be sent in the coming weeks.

This will be Ms Criddle's first deployment with ShelterBox since she completed her ShelterBox Response Team training last month.

"I'm really excited to be putting all the skills I learnt throughout the training period into practice," she said.

"Ever since I found out about ShelterBox I've been blown away by the simplicity of what they do. When I discovered there was an opportunity to become part of the team that work on the ground physically delivering the boxes, I jumped at it and now can't wait to carry on the great work the other teams have been doing in Brazil."

Earlier this year, Ms Criddle cycled nearly 2,000 miles from Somerset, where she is now based, to Istanbul and raised 2,000 for ShelterBox. She did the epic ride on her own, camping along the route and passing through France, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey.