Breast care nurse Hazel Sycamore took 400 donated bras from Southland to Uganda for the local women.

Some would say 400 bras in your suitcase are a few too many.

For Breast Care nurse Hazel Sycamore though, 400 bras were always part of the plan.

In August, Sycamore went over to Uganda as a volunteer aid worker with Fountain of Peace to help with the care of babies and development in the Kyenjojo district.

As well as childcare, Sycamore also helped to provide the women of the district with bras of their own.

Foundation of Peace is a charity which provides care for Ugandan babies who can no longer be looked after by their own families, and places them in family-based homes built by the charity.

Sycamore heard about the charity at her Rotary Club meeting and decided she wanted to help out.

After putting up five signs in the Breast Care Centre where she works and the hospital, Sycamore had bags of bras piling in.

"Within three weeks I had about 400 bras, they just kept coming in the door," she said.

She said women would leave bras at the door for her, and she even had one women come back an hour after her breast care appointment with seven new bras for the trip.

"[The woman] said, 'the women of Uganda deserve brand new ones, not second-hand ones'."

Sycamore spent three weeks in Uganda caring for the Fountain of Peace babies and helping out with the charity's building project.

When the time came to distribute the bras to the local women, Sycamore was amazed with how many people turned up and the journeys they had taken to get there.

"Some of them had walked five kilometres to get there," she said.

About 70 women showed up to the church where Sycamore and her team were giving out the bras, and a few giggles were shared when they put the bras over top of their clothes to show the local women how to wear them.

"Well, they though it was hilarious."

Sycamore said while some of them had bras, they were in poor condition and others only had a piece of cloth to tie around their chests.

Laughing aside, there was a more serious undertone to the work Sycamore had come to help with and was glad she was able to provide a bit of happiness in a poverty-stricken area.

"Their delight was amazing, it was just so touching," she said.

"There's so many people that need help - they just don't have the means to help themselves."

Sycamore loved working with the children the most, but she said not knowing how they would grow up and develop was the hardest part.

"But I might do, I'd quite like to go back," she said.

"Whether I do or not remains to be seen."