A NURSE and her husband are taking a year-long career break and giving up creature comforts to travel to Central America and help some of the world’s poorest people.

Community psychiatric nurse Sarah Hogg and her husband, Simon, have made the life-changing decision to spend a year in Guatemala, volunteering for a charity which helps street children and destitute single mothers.

However, in order to share their skills and expertise in the extremely deprived town of Santiago Sacatepequez, the couple need to raise £600 in sponsorship for every month they are there.

Mr and Mrs Hogg, both 32, set off for Central America next month.

They will be working for Mission Guatemala, a charity established three years ago by a British family, which has set up a church and school and helped to transform the lives of the 42 children they are educating.

Mrs Hogg, who has worked at West Park Hospital, in Darlington, since 2002, will be teaching and continuing the charity’s outreach work with homeless children, who are often left with no alternative but to live on rubbish dumps.

She also hopes to work with women in the area who are forced to raise children alone and in poverty.

“We had some quite difficult personal circumstances over the past two years, and it gave us a sense of what is important,”

said Mrs Hogg, a qualified nurse of 11 years.

“As a Christian, I felt quite moved that if I could do something to help people, I should.

“When they think of poverty, people tend to think of places in Africa. Central America has been called the forgotten continent. The people are desperately, desperately poor – you are talking about people who are living on less than 50p a day.”

The couple recently visited the mission ahead of their planned trip.

“We were very humbled by some of the people we met who had nothing, yet were so pleased we were there. We went to see a family who were living in just a tin shed, but had decorated the roof with crepe paper for us.

“There were some scary moments as well. There are about 40 murders a day in Guatemala and a lot of gangrelated crime. We were very aware of that when we were there.”

But this has not put the couple off.

“I think sometimes you have got to take a risk. We can’t stay here and plod on with our lives and always regret not trying to help,” she said.

To sponsor the couple, call New Life Baptist Church on 01609-775396 or email sarahm.

hogg@live.co.uk