Two keen girl guides from Lacey Green are raising money for a trip of a lifetime helping disadvantaged communities.

Caring teenagers, Ellie O’Shaughnessy and Iona MacKinnon, are heading overseas with Girlguiding UK to experience the culture in other countries and help out those less fortunate than them.   

The fourteen-year-olds have been friends since they met at Brownies when they were seven.

Ellie, a Princes Risborough School pupil, is heading to Romania for two weeks in July, while Iona is making her way to Finland for a week on March 31.

Ellie said: “In Romania I'll be doing some charity work and running a summer school for children whose parents suffer from alcohol abuse. They often come from poor families and they have to work with their parents so they don’t get a chance to go to school, so I’m looking forward to helping them.”

Iona, who goes to Waddesdon C of E School, will be camping in a winter tent in the snow, where temperatures can reach minus 25.

She said: “I will be going to camp with Finnish people and experience their culture and traditions with lots other people around the world. It’s really exciting.” 

Ellie said: “This is the first time we’ve heard about the international trips that Girlguiding hold.

“We’re both really excited to go but quite nervous as well.”

Ellie’s mum Karen told of her pride at her daughter and her friend: “I’m very proud of both of them. They have been fundraising independently but something like the car boot sale they’ve worked really hard to arrange together.

“They’ve had to go through a lot to even get to where they are now. It’s not the kind of camp that everyone can go to. They signed up for a selection weekend and they started off thinking it would be a fun weekend camping.

“They’re particular about who they send abroad to represent the Girlguiding movement so I'm really proud of them to get through that.”

After attending an initial selection weekend with 40 girls, only ten were chosen to go to Finland and Ellie and three others were chosen to go on to another selection process at Pax Lodge, where seven girls from across the country were chosen to go to Romania.

Ellie said: “The selection weekend started out like a bit of a laugh, we wanted to have some fun but then we were shown some presentations about people who had gone in previous years and we both started wanting to do something like that so we started putting effort into what we were doing. The whole weekend was really fun.”

To meet the costs of the trips, Ellie has to raise £1300 and Iona £900 and the girls are planning to hold a variety of fundraising events to help them fund their trips.

Ellie said: “So far Iona and I have held a fair at our Rangers group selling homemade soaps and cakes and a raffle. I've also been doing chores and helped my dad at work.

“I'm hoping to do bag packing and we’re running a car boot sale and we’re also hoping to do a sponsored night walk or maybe a BBQ and an Easter egg hunt.”

The indoor boot sale will be held at Lacey Green village hall on March 22 from 12pm to 4.30pm.

To book tables in advance it is £8 and to buy a table on the day it is £11.  Admission is 50p.