Oxford charity worker Tamsin Morrison met bra makers and rice cake bakers during a trip to the Philippines to see first-hand the work of the charity she promotes.

Miss Morrison, 29, public relations and events manager for Opportunity International, based in St Clement's, travelled to the Pacific nation last month, to meet the people who are being helped out of poverty by small-scale loans.

Opportunity International offers the money to people in poverty across the world, to allow them to start businesses and become self sufficient.

Last month, the charity announced it had helped finance 500,000 people in the Philippines, including people on the island of Leyte, where a community was buried in a mudslide in February.

Miss Morrison said: "I found the Filipinos are really, really hospitable and I was amazed how much I was shown in a week. It made a real impact seeing how determined they were to pull themselves out of poverty."

She met loan officers, local people, usually women, who are in charge of coordinating the money.

The officers hold regular meetings, where entrepreneurs participate in Bible study as well as learning about business skills like book keeping.

Miss Morrison said people helped included Rodson Casaig, who makes bras for a living, as well as people with tricycles they use as taxis.

She said: "One woman makes soaps, getting scraps from a nearby factory, putting them into moulds and selling them, another makes rice cakes and sells them on the streets.

"Another has been selling snacks on the streets since she was eight, working every day from 9am to 8pm.

"She has four children aged from one-and-a-half to 11. She roasts cashew nuts, flavours them and runs a stall selling them, then uses the money to educate her children.

"Without the business her children probably wouldn't have been going to school and would have been scraping to get by."

Miss Morrison's trip coincided with the launch of the Opportunity Card a new product which gives Filipino migrants working in other countries, including the UK, the chance to send money home more cheaply.

David Coates, Opportunity's chief executive, said: "The issue at present is that it's expensive to send money through secure channels, with fees averaging 13 to 20 per cent.

"The Opportunity Card will mean that families and dependants will receive a much greater proportion of the money."