Tubridy said he felt that next month's Ethiopia visit will be "life-transforming"

Ryan Tubridy has said a week-long visit to Ethipoia next month with the aid agency GOAL will be a life transforming experience. 

Ryan made the announcement this morning on his RTÉ 2fm show, telling listeners he was both excited and a little bit nervous about the visit, adding that the trip would be  "out of the comfort zone and into another reality".

Making the announcement, Tubridy said: "For about 10 years I've been asked, 'Would you go on a trip for a charity' and so on. I really just didn't have the time to do it because I would've spent time in London in the summertime and so forth doing my other work experience/job [with BBC Radio 2]."

He continued: "And then eventually the worlds have collided, to the extent that I was eventually asked by GOAL, the charity that I've known for many, many years."

Tubridy said he had asked GOAL if his visit would be of benefit to its aid work and when GOAL replied that it would, he held a number of meetings with the organisation and decided to go.

"I'm going to Ethiopia. I've never been to Africa, let alone Ethiopia," he said.

"I think that I have this curiosity about this country's [Ireland] relationship with famine and the famine story and how it has evolved, and how we've evolved as people and generations."

"Ethiopia have had their story about famine and, of course, from Live Aid 30 years ago and Bob Geldof and everything in between. And then GOAL have been working there for decades as well. But I've never been at the heart of the story, so I'm going to go along and have a look in the first week of August," he added.

Source: rte.ie