A WATER company has teamed up with a charity to ensure that people overseas receive clean supplies.

Northumbrian Water has adopted WaterAid, which provides people in Africa and Asia with clean water, sanitation and hygiene education, as its designated charity.

It hopes to help reduce the number of people in the world without access to safe water and sanitation, currently 2.4 billion, a third of the world's population.

Louise Robinson, from Gateshead, who works at Northumbrian Water's head office, in Durham, has recently returned from a WaterAid fact-finding mission in Ghana.

She said: "Nothing could have prepared me to see a lady and her family in a village in northern Ghana, who had to walk for several hours each day, collecting water from a muddy hole.

"I arrived at her house at dawn, only to find she was already on her second trip for water that day.

"She was seven months' pregnant and had elephantitis in one of her legs, yet she still had to do this back-breaking work."

Northumbrian Water is appealing for donations of £15 to help provide clean water.

Cheques, made payable to WaterAid, should be sent to Julie Wilson, Northumbrian Water, Durham House, Abbey Road, Pity Me, Durham, DH1 5FJ.