A 21-year-old volunteer from the United Kingdom has expressed her gratitude towards a good Samaritan and his family for their support.

A 21-year-old volunteer from the United Kingdom has expressed her gratitude towards a good Samaritan and his family for their support.

This as the young woman, Ilene Botha works to find an available flight back home to England after borders in various countries closed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Botha says she had plans to spend more time in Fiji following a project she was working on in Yasawa.

“Obviously with the lack of data signal and just general phone signal. We didn’t really know what was going on, so when we came out it was quite a big shock to find that some countries have closed down and it was spreading and a few of the volunteers had already gone home.”

Botha says she has managed to contact her family and is grateful for the assistance given to her during her time in the country.

The Good Samaritan who spoke on the condition of anonymity says he thought to help Botha as many people only wish to be with their loved ones in this time.

“So I had to calm her down,  I had to take her some place- away from the red zone. Just to keep her calm so she could think properly She could make her own decision, so I advised her we need to go down and she could arrange her flights on the internet and if there are any issues there was always the option to go to the embassy.”

Ilene Botha has managed to contact the British High Commission and has travelled back to Nadi to meet with other UK volunteers to wait out the travel restrictions before being able to travel back to the UK.