For charity fundraisers will be getting their walking shoes on this Saturday for the girl whose plight has touched the hearts of Sunday Life readers, Dakota Clarke.

Last month, Sunday Life revealed her parents' dream to bring the two-year-old to China for revolutionary stem cell treatment which could help her see for the first time.

Devoted Newtownabbey couple Wilma and Darren Clarke face an uphill struggle to raise the £30,000 needed to bring their daughter to Xiashan for a course of potentially life changing injections. But a planned eight-mile fundraiser in Antrim this Saturday should be a walkover for everyone taking part, said a hopeful Wilma!

"I don't mind walking at all and neither do the rest of them. It would be different if it had been running though!

"We have had a brilliant response so far. There is already £500 that we know of, raised for the walk, from the Top Of The Town bar to The Ramble Inn. My sisters and my mum Gloria, neighbours and old school friends are taking part.

"Some of them are even dressing up in fancy dress for the walk. We will have a hula-hula girl wearing a fat suit, a human whoopee cushion and a clown!"

Wilma said how touched she was with the public's support for the appeal to help Dakota who has a rare brain condition, called Septo-optic Dysplasia, which causes blindness.

*Donations can be made to the Dakota Clarke account online at www.babydakota.org.