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Website: Alan Kerins African Projects - www.alankerins.ie

Late last year Gerry Cuddy got to thinking about life and age and mortality and all the things around the world he'd like to see and do. He'd be 50 soon. Mid-life crisis? He didn't think about motorbikes or investing in a new wardrobe. He needed a project.

As chairman of Cope in Galway he thought about doing something for the homeless and elderly around the city, but the whole idea was to leave his comfort zone behind. He looked at charity hikes all around the world, but sometimes he wondered where the money went: on the trip - or the people they were helping? At home in Clarinbridge, he remembered his neighbour Alan Kerins, the Galway hurler with the charity in Zambia. Some fundraising drives had been held in the village. Maybe there was something he could do.

Kerins' response to Cuddy raised the bar a little higher. He and Sister Cathy Crawford, Kerins' contact in Zambia, had instigated a building project in Mongu, the corner of western Zambia where Kerins' charity was based. Pull together a crew, Kerins said, and go build some houses.

"Everyone I asked said yes," says Cuddy. "I never had to ask twice. It was amazing. I thought everyone would think it was a cracked notion, and that I'd just go myself, but everyone just said 'no bother'."

The group was quickly assembled. Eanna Ryan, a venerable old Galway hurler. His brother Billy. Charlie Byrne the bookseller and his brother, Peter the builder. Mike Bindon, the referee. Ger Hanrahan, the quiet one. There was Michael Higgins, engineer and slave-driver, and David Heskin accountant to the project whose dexterity with numbers, reckoned the boys, mightn't be matched by his comfort with tools. They kept the fundraising simple, used their own personal contacts in business and watched the money roll in. One member of the party wrote to 90 of his relatives and received envelopes filled with money. In the end the crew had raised €80,000 to be spent exclusively on the Cheshire Home and the building project.

Early one morning last April they set out for 18 days. A 34-hour journey stretched out ahead of them, from Shannon to London and onto Lusaka, Zambia's capital. An epic nine-hour bus journey took them through a wildlife park the size of Wales and on towards Mongu, the dusty, shambling town that would serve as home.

At the bus station they met Sr Cathy, head of the local Cheshire Home for Physically Disabled Children where Kerins first visited as a physiotherapist in 2005, and set to work the following morning, splitting into groups of three and teaming up with the locals to work. As temperatures soared to 38 degrees during the day, they worked diligently, using the blocks constructed from sand, water and a minimal amount of cement and a diesel-powered block-making machine.

In 18 days they built eight houses and as the materials ran out they were halfway through their ninth. The last few days were spent among themselves, soaking up memories, sights and lessons. When Cuddy and his crew looked back, they reckoned they left Zambia with far more than anything they had given in return.

"When you looked at Sr Cathy, Sr Vianney and the other nuns and priests out there, they had given of themselves selflessly to these people. We were out there, in one sense, on holiday. It was an adventure. But we weren't staying. They often say you get more by giving than receiving. That certainly happened for us."