'Television tells you an awful lot these days, but it is not the same as having that personal contact.'

Paul and Hilary Harris, a couple from Dorset, have been sponsoring Mariluz through Plan for five years. At the beginning of the year they decided to meet her and wtiness Plan's work with her community first hand.

Mariluz with Paul and Hilary

'Aeropuerto? Asked the taxi driver cheerfully as he pulled up outside our hotel. His face soon fell when my wife and I, who had arrived in the Dominican Republic on holiday four days earlier, said we wanted to go to Sechoem bus station, twice the distance but the same standard fare,' recalls Paul.

'As we drove along the main highway, a large inter-city coach passed and the taxi driver shouted: 'Bus for Santo Domingo! He take you!' He accelerated to pull alongside, flashing his lights and blasting the horn, slamming on his brakes and retreating to avoid oncoming cars, only to pull out again the moment there was a gap in the traffic. Then, without warning, he stopped sharply. 'There. Bus for Santo Domingo,' he said, pointing at a badly beaten up minibus on the other side of the street.'

It was the start of an eventful 200-mile expedition the couple will not forget. Their journey had actually started five years earlier when Paul and Hilary read a leaflet about child sponsorship and decided to get involved and sponsor a child with Plan. They began sponsoring Mariluz, who lives in a rural area of the Dominican Republic. She was just a year old at the time.

'It was always important to us to go out there. We get letters from Mariluz a couple of times a year, written with the help of a Plan volunteer and we write back about life here. It is a two-way education process,' says Paul.

'Television tells you an awful lot these days, but it is not the same as having that personal contact. Going out there to see Mariluz and her family was something else. It changes the way you look at life,' says Hilary.

'Mariluz and her family lived in a small hut a couple of miles up a dirt track. There were three rooms, each about eight feet square. In the living room there were a couple of broken rocking chairs and the family's prize possession, a ghetto blaster. Decorating one of the walls a Christmas card we had sent them four months earlier. Out in the yard was another small hut with a raised earth hearth where Mariluz's mum cooked. She was so proud of her kitchen,' recalls Hilary.

'A Plan worker took us to the school in the village. We had brought small gifts like colouring pads for children. The children were so excited. They were leaning through the windows to talk to us,' says Paul.

'We witnessed the work of Plan in action and how they have helped Mariluz's community. Plan has been active in the Dominican Republic since 1987. Children are now going to school, a bridge has been built over a raging river, which in winter divides the two parts of the main community, and a health programme is up and running. Programmes have been set up to increase the quality of basic education and access to safe water and basic sanitary facilities. We were amazed at what Plan had achieved.

'We took food for the family, to make up for the money Mariluz' father would have lost by taking the day off from working in the fields, and presents for Mariluz like colouring pencils, lollipops and hair slides.

'What we took was appreciated, but they were more overcome by the fact that somebody had come half way round the world to see them. That is what mattered and it made them feel very important. It might have taken us a long time to get there, but it was a much bigger journey in terms of culture and way of life. It was a very special experience,' says Paul.