A WISBECH teenager has won an award for a photograph she took while on a life-changing school trip to Africa last July,

Alice Meekins, 19, was part of a group expedition from Wisbech Grammar School to Kenya, where she undertook charity work for a month.

A photograph she took while on safari in Tsavo East defeated hundreds of other entries to triumph in the Camps International competition, winning her a digital camera.

She said: “I have always been into photography but this is the first time I have entered a competition.

“We were very lucky to see the lions, and were told that the majority of the time people do not see them at all. “Here we had come across a group of about 10 lion cubs lounging on a rock.

“It was a bit of a shock to win.”

Alice says the people she met while helping out at nature conservation areas and schools had a profound effect on her.

She said: “There is a lot you can learn from being there. The people you meet have so little but they are so happy with what they have got.

“People in this country would be dissatisfied if they had to endure such hardship.”

The English Literature student at Durham University has ambitions of one day returning to Kenya.

She said: “You do see it as a once in a lifetime opportunity when you are out there but I would like to go back.

“When you look at the pictures from the trip you do miss it.

“It was nice to be without a mobile phone and escape from the normal pressures of life while at the same time doing some good for other people.”