WHILE her school friends are busy revising for their A-level exams, 17-year-old Charlee Pitts will be 3,000 miles away helping Syrian refugees.

The Sixth Form student begged her teachers at d'Overbroecks College, North Oxford, and her father, to let her volunteer for a week in a refugee camp at Amman, in Jordan.

Next week she will take a break from her AS exam studies to run a yoga bereavement programme for children who have lost their parents or witnessed the horrors of war.

She will work at a community centre in the camp where thousands of people live – cleaning the area, running tennis and football sessions and helping out those most in need.

She said: "I went to Ethiopia last summer to volunteer for three weeks with a group from my old school Headington.

"We worked in a school with 2,500 children and built them clean toilets and taught them English and maths.

"It was the hardest experience of my life, but ever since I have wanted to help somewhere else."

"We are so lucky here and yet people complain about so much.

"We could have been them. They haven't done anything wrong and don't have a choice."

The teenager, who lives in Woodstock, will travel to the Jordanian capital with her dad Andrew on Thursday, leaving her two sisters and mother Nicky at home.

In the middle of the camp, a temporary home to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian refugees, she will meet Susan Bainter Baghdadi, a business partner of her father.

Ms Bainter Baghdadi has been running a programme to help trauma-sensitive refugees through yoga and set up a community centre to rebuild lives.

Miss Pitts said: "Some of the children have seen their parents die or seen other traumatic events in fleeing their country.

"The yoga attempts to relax them and help them.

"I have never taught yoga before I'm looking forward to learning and can't wait to help."

The schoolgirl, who has an exam the day before she leaves and then another one four days after she returns home, urged others to think about doing something similar in the summer holidays.

She said: "It's really something more people should be doing – after I did it once in Ethiopia I couldn't wait to go out again.

"We tend to take things for granted and it's important to help those in need."

Director of studies at the school, Andrew Gillespie said: "It is quite inspiring to see a student such as Charlee take the initiative to go and help others in this way and to show such care for those less fortunate than themselves.

"She is an example to us all."