Slicing a patient's mouth with a razorblade and rubbing elephant dung into the cuts was one of the ways Joe Lukong was told to cure his stammer.

Another suggestion was to only drink water out of a snail's shell.

Or he could sacrifice a goat or cow, add several calabashes of wine and palm oil, to cure what was seen as a curse from the gods.

Those three treatments were all suggested to Joseph in his homeland of Cameroon, where he says little attention is given to stuttering as a serious public health concern.

He has had the problem since birth.

Joe believes he inherited the affliction from his father, a polygamist who had three wives and 21 children - 17 of whom stammer.

Joe set up a self-help group in 1987, which developed into the Speak Clear Association of Cameroon.

His concerns about a lack of effective treatment led him to contact the Starfish Project in Hailsham, which treats stammering.

Recovering stammerers who have been through the Starfish course raised £1,700 to bring Joe to England.

He is being given one-to-one training in the project's techniques, to take with him when he returns to Africa on Sunday.

Anne Blight set up the project three years ago, as a non-profitmaking scheme.

She runs specialist three-day courses for people with stammers, teaching them a breathing technique to help them communicate more clearly.

Instead of gasping and gulping for air, they are taught to inhale deeply and speak using the breath they have just taken.

The method is certainly more comfortable than another suggestion from Cameroon.

Liquid from colanut tree leaves is dripped inside stutterers' nostrils as they lie down.

Patients are then forced to inhale the toxic smoke as the colanut seeds are burnt.

Joe said: "Stammerers have to resort to very crude methods of treatment, which have no real effect."

He has helped control his stammer entirely through self-tuition, after sending away for videos and books.

He said: "I used to always want to hide the fact I stammer but now I'm getting more confident. Now I want to help other people in my country."

Anne said: "There is no cure for stammering. It's not a disease, it's a habit which can be controlled through a change in technique and attitude.

"We encourage people to say they're a recovering stammerer and they're doing something positive about it."