HELPING the needy both at home and abroad is the goal of two interlinked charities based in Malvern Hope Unlimited and Hands International have operated as sister organisations for more than five years, working in close partnership and sharing resources to support vulnerable children, young people and families.

The alliance grew out of a number of elements; firstly the TGs project, which worked to create a skate park and provided a variety of outreach services for young people in the community, including the highly-successful TGs Red project, which provides sexual health and relationship advice, and which is still going.

Secondly there were the Hope 08, 09 and 10 projects in the last few years, in which volunteers and young people performed tasks within the community, such as tidying up and planting a roundabout outside Morrisons, or clearing an overgrown area at the Beauchamp Community.

Much of its work has focused on the Pickersleigh area, generally reckoned as Malvern's area of greatest need, where it worked closely to support some of the young people considered hardest to engage.

And finally, there have been the long-standing links between Malvern and Thailand, fostered by Hands International, which has seen numerous visits made to Thailand by volunteers from Malvern, helping the residents of impoverished local communities in the province of Chiang Mai improve their lives.

Hands has been working in Thailand for over 14 years, encouraging local ownership, long-term sustainability and self-sufficiency.

Its work includes community development and relief aid, such as building and renovating rural schools and providing of equipment. Most of the work is carried out by volunteers from Malvern who travel to Thailand for two or three months a year.

It also works to protect children from human trafficking and exploitation.

Dave Alban of Hands International said: "Visiting Thailand and seeing how these people live challenges your preconceptions. They have very little in the way of material possessions, and living with them makes you rethink the values of wealth and material possessions. They have so little, but they always greet us with food."

He said that it was particularly moving when the team visited this year; a nearby village had just burned down, leaving residents without homes, possessions and stocks of rice.

"They lost the rice they had harvested last year and the rice they were hoping to plant this year, but they still greeted us with food."

Now the two charities are working jointly on a new project, Connect Malvern, a youth employment project that will ultimately benefit the Thai communities.

Tom Humphries, the manager of Hope Unlimited, said: "The aim is to reach the young people who are the hardest to reach.

"They face all sorts of obstacles in trying to get employment and the aim is to overcome these. The project will use one-to-one mentoring to support them through the process of finding a job, getting it and keeping it.

"This could include anything from helping with training, providing transport or even helping then with the right clothes for an interview."

The aim is to train them in vocational skills that will help them to take part in an exchange programme, visiting Thailand to support the work in the communities that Hands International is already carrying out.

"It will be hard work, but it will be giving young people a chance that they currently don't have."