A KIND-HEARTED water expert from York made a splash in impoverished communities in India.

Yorkshire Water employee Christina Blackburn, a waste water asset planner, has just returned from a charity visit to the country.

She saw first-hand the problems faced by India's poor, in Gaonpada in the Puri district of Orrissa.

There, villagers collect water for drinking, cooking and washing from a river near their toilets. Lack of education - and the fact that the villagers have no other option - mean that waterborne diseases, such as diarrhoea and intestinal worms, are common.

National charity WaterAid plans to begin work there as soon as it can.

Christina also visited villages such as Balipatna, where the money donated to WaterAid has made a huge difference to the everyday life of the people who live there. All villagers in Balipatna now have access to proper toilets.

The charity has also installed a hand pump, which means that everyone has access to clean, safe drinking water.

Christina, whose India visit was first reported in The Press earlier this year, said: "WaterAid is about much more than taps and toilets. Access to safe water and latrines is just the beginning. Being free from disease and the burden of collecting water enables children to go to school and adults to work themselves out of poverty.

"In some cases, WaterAid really is the difference between life and death, but in so many other cases it is the difference between existing and really living."

As a company, Yorkshire Water raised £250,000 for WaterAid. That money is enough to help the charity provide safe, clean water, sanitation and hygiene education for more than 16,000 people. The fundraising was finished in time for World Day For Water earlier this month.

Christina added: "World Day For Water was an appropriate time to raise awareness of this important issue as well as celebrate the hard work and generosity of Yorkshire Water employees who make much of WaterAid's work possible."