COURTYARD-based New Theatre Works (NTW) is extending its boundaries with two ambitious new international projects.

With £31,000 backing from the Arts Council, company director Ellie Parker has devised a programme that will enable NTW to revisit some of the Sri Lankan camps she worked at last year, following her involvement with FunforLife and their work with tsunami victims.

"These children are out of the news, but not out of crisis," she said. "We need to consolidate the work we did last year. The kids had so little in their lives and they hated us leaving."

Children will join British and Sri Lankan actors to make a play drawing on their own experience.

Initially the work will tour schools in the West Midlands, who will be encouraged to twin with Sri Lankan schools via the charity HelpLanka and, in February, the team goes to Sri Lanka to work with the children.

"It's fantastic that the Arts Council is funding this work in England," Ellie said, "but we have still got to raise another £9,000 to take the project out to Sri Lanka."

If anyone would like to arrange a fund-raising event, contact Jenny Ellerton at jennyellerton@btinternet.com The second project funded by the Arts Council will enable playwright Megan Barker from Orcop to research and write a play about the lives of migrant workers in Hereford.

New Theatre Works will tour this new work in caravans around the county next summer.