  The collapsar model predicts that the progenitors of Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs)
are metal poor in Fe group elements. The existence of low metallicity stellar
populations could manifest itself through special characteristics of the
immediate environment of the GRB site in the host galaxy. We analyse the strong
emission lines from the sub-luminous host galaxy of GRB 980425, which showed
the first connection with a supernova explosion (SN 1998bw). The host has a
sufficient size to allow detailed resolved spectroscopy of individual HII
regions and to look for regions with special properties close to the the GRB
site. Using integral field spectroscopy with VIMOS we cover most of the high
surface brightness part of the host including the HII region where the
supernova and GRB occurred. The star formation rate, reddening, equivalent
width and stellar mass in the GRB region is similar to other HII regions in the
host. Extreme values arise in the only region that shows emission lines from
Wolf-Rayet stars; a region that lies 800 pc in projection from the GRB site.
Strong emission line diagnostics of all HII regions imply oxygen abundances
between 0.3 and 0.8 solar with the lowest values arising in the WR and GRB
regions. Comparing the measured emission line ratios for a sample of low
redshift GRB hosts to theoretical models and to observations of field galaxies,
we find that GRBs arise in a range of metallicity environments while the
regions are consistently very young. The similar line ratios of GRB hosts
compared to the WR region can arise in spatially unresolved galaxies with
bright HII regions near the GRB location. (Abridged)
