JOKINGLY, Anita Edgar told the audience she was once compared to Mother Theresa.

"One of my volunteers used to work with Mother Theresa and she said to me, 'you have so much in common," she said.

"I thought something nice was coming but then she said 'you are both bossy and rude.'"

Anita laughed, and added: "It's how you get things done."

She was anything but rude and bossy during her moving talk to the ladies at Brixham's Methodist Church hall about the harsh lives suffered by many children living in Goa.

It was obvious that sheer hard graft, determination, grit and commitment combined with a never-ending supply of compassion are what drives the spirited 64-year-old.

After training as a nurse, Anita signed up with the British Nursing Agency and worked in a variety of hospitals. Later she gained an HGV licence and spent the next 15 years driving truck loads of aid to people in need in Eastern Europe, including Albania, Romania and Bosnia.

Her daughter insisted she needed a break to recharge her batteries, so in 1996 Anita flew to Goa for a life-changing holiday.

"My bedroom was in the back of the hotel and from the window I saw little children who had been abandoned," she said.

"They were eating food from the dustbins behind the hotel. I had to find out why they were street children.

"I didn't know anything about India or its caste system, where if you are born at the bottom you are one of the untouchables.

"The Indian Government and other Indians think you have done something wrong in a former life and therefore you are doing your penance.

"You have no birth certificate so you cannot go to hospital, the doctor or school."

Shocked at what she had witnessed, Anita was walking along the beach when she says God gave her a vision to open homes for the street children.

"I was 50 and I was going to retire and see the world," she said.

Anita asked God for three things — strength, people to help and a confirmation.

"I walked up to a lemonade stall where I saw a man reading an English bible like mine.

"He offered to take me to his church on Sunday. I went and was introduced to the pastor Matthew Kurian who asked me to say something to his congregation.

"I got up and shared the vision. Tears were pouring down Matthew's face. Two years ago he had had a vision that God would be sending someone to help him to open up a hostel for street children.

"I said I would give up my home and come and live in Goa. The custom is that grandmothers live with family so I moved in with Matthew, his wife Julia and their six-month-old baby."

One of the first places Matthew took his new big-hearted friend to was to a nearby slum where they rescued 15 children.

"As soon as a girl has her first period she is forced into an arranged marriage, often to a man a lot older," Anita said.

"Within a short time babies come. By the time girls are 18 years old they have suddenly developed their mind into understanding the person they have been made to marry is not the one they want to spend the rest of their lives with, so they go their separate ways.

"No new partner will ever take anyone else's children. One day, they wake up and mummy has gone. These are the children we are rescuing."

Today, the charity she helped set up, El Shaddai, cares for more than 3,000 children.

The charity has four residential homes, three cottages for older children, a non-formal school, several slum schools and medical camps, three day and night care shelters, plus a cottage hospital for terminally ill children.

Outreach projects are in place outside of Goa in Mumbai, Nagpur, Chennai, Karnataka, Kerala, Sikkim and Bangalore. Other projects include helping poor rural families create wells, a meals on wheels initiative and a community centre/school where mothers learn a craft.

On top of this, the charity opened a children's home in Tamil Nadu following the devastating tsunami of 2004. El Shaddai has also adopted three tsunami-affected villages and set up feeding programmes for the children.

It would be an amazing achievement anywhere in the world, let alone a country steeped in such class traditions.

Anita, affectionately known as 'Anita Mother' by the children, explained: "Some of the children we have rescued by the side of the road wouldn't be alive if we had not done what we did.

"Some were railway children. They run away and jump on the trains if they have been physically or sexually abused and want to escape the pain.

"There are thousands of trains running every few minutes all over India. They sweep the stations, serve samosas and chai tea. They sniff glue and the police throw them off. Where I've got field workers at the station, they come to us."

Sadly, El Shaddai cannot rescue every child in Goa.

Just as portrayed in the movie Slumdog Millionaire, many of the children have been deliberately injured to increase their begging potential. One father broke the bones in his son's arms and legs so he could make more money.

Anita found a surgeon to help the youngster, but the night before his operation was due his father abducted him from the hospital.

At that time there were no protection laws in India, but since then the Government has approached El Shaddai for help in creating a service for children who are abused and in need of care and protection.

"We are working to put together policies for this. It's a great honour to do that because it will help millions of children in the years to come," Anita said.

One of the charity's latest projects is the Children's Cottage Hospital for terminally ill children or children with HIV.

"The untouchables do not know they have HIV because they don't go to the doctors. The next caste up are still very poor but they do go to the doctors.

"They don't buy medicine because they have no money to help the children, they just hope they die as soon as possible. We give them quality of life and let them die in dignity."

Undaunted by frustrating red tape, Anita even manages to get her young charges birth certificates.

"You have to have an education otherwise nothing changes," she said. "But they can't go to school because they haven't got birth certificates. It costs 100 rupees to get a legal birth certificate and we guess their dates of birth."

After gaining GCSEs and A-Levels at El Shaddai's Shanti Niketan school, many of the children go on to college or university, or out to work.

They live in cottages owned by the charity where they can learn to live independently.

"Many of the children in our homes have been with us for a long time and have become institutionalised.

"In the cottages they do their own cooking and cleaning and even manage their own budget and shopping."

Anita spends half of the year in Goa and the other half making extensive and exhausting fundraising tours around the UK, Europe and US, presenting the charity to anyone willing to listen.

When I asked her if she was proud of her achievements, Anita replied with characteristic modesty: "I'm usually too busy to think about it. It's scary when I think back, but it's also very exciting looking forward.

"I'm just sorry I'm not 20 years old. I feel if anybody can do anything to help anyone like this in their life, it's worth living."

To find out more about El Shaddai Child Rescue or to arrange a talk by Anita or one of her volunteers phone the charity's South West UK office on 01409 254876 or visit www.childrescue.net