'You can change an African child's life'

She single-handedly set up her own charity, Malawi Dream, to help the disadvantaged children she found on the island of Likoma. Now she has raised £50,000 and is ready to take her work to the next level - with the help of the Evening Standard Christmas Appeal.

"When I saw the appeal to support Plan UK, a charity that works with similarly deprived schools in Malawi, Kenya and Sierra Leone, I realised there was a great opportunity to work together in a way which can benefit both charities," said Mrs Waters, 46.

It was an invitation from the hotel cleaner, Gladys Njakale, to tour the nearby village of Mbungo that led to Mrs Waters's charity crusade.

"Gladys took me to Mbungo primary school," she said. "I was shocked to see children dressed in rags with no uniforms and no food in their stomachs until dinner.

"There were two dark, concrete classrooms with no electricity and 56 eager pupils sharing two textbooks and being taught geography without an atlas. The walls were bare but what really gutted me was when the headteacher, Joseph, proudly opened the stationery cupboard, which he kept under lock and key, and there was absolutely nothing in there."

After returning to London, Mrs Waters rounded up 30 friends who each donated £50 and with this money she set about helping the children. She returned every two months with clothes, textbooks and money to start a food programme.

She said: "I have had discussions with Plan and the will is there to help each other with sourcing and transporting essential materials to Likoma, an island accessible only by ferry. I urge readers to give generously to Plan UK and help children who have a thirst for knowledge and for whom education is the way out of poverty."

Marie Staunton, Plan UK's chief executive, said: "People like Sonia Waters are an inspiration. Her work in Malawi is impressive and we look forward to working closely with her to our mutual benefit."

Mrs Waters also has the blessing of the Malawi minister of education, whom she has visited, and she has secured Vicar Of Dibley actor Gary Waldhorn as patron of her charity.

Thanks to her, Mbungo Primary is starting to thrive. With her initial £1,500 in donations, she installed a generator (£100) to supply electricity to the classrooms and bought material and employed a dressmaker to make all the pupils school uniforms (£120).

She employed a cook (£6 a month) to give the children a bowl of maize and a cup of tea for lunch, bought the school an inflatable globe (£12) and bought chalk, pencils, rulers, textbooks, visual aids, times-tables and alphabet charts.

"Starting this charity has changed my life," said Mrs Waters. "I have a wardrobe full of shoes but you can only wear one pair at a time and for the price of a new £50 pair I can change the life of a child in Africa. When you think about it like that, everyday choices become charged with meaning."

The rewards have been great, too, for the qualified nurse who has no children of her own. When she disembarks from the ferry at Likoma, she is greeted like the Pied Piper. Mrs Waters said: "The children come running from all directions, shouting: 'Mama Sonia! Mama Sonia!' Suddenly I have kids on my hips, children jumping on top of me, wanting to hold my hand. It's like having an extended family in Africa."

When she goes for Christmas it's even better: "Last year, I took 60 shirts and dresses for the Aids orphans of the village. You should have seen their faces. This year I'll do the same but before we give out presents, Gladys, myself and 16 women will cook a feast for the 97 orphans and elderly in the village they will never forget."

Click here for your chance to bid online for the most exclusive and unforgettable opportunities London has to offer - and money can't buy - in our spectacular Christmas Charity Auction in aid of schoolchildren in Africa

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO GET INVOLVED IN OUR CHARITY CAMPAIGN

HOW THE SCHOOL LINKING PROGRAMME WORKS

British schools pay £600 a year to belong to the Plan UK programme, of which £200 goes direct to the link school in Africa to effect improvements, while the balance is used to support the direct costs of running the programme.
Participating schools receive a resource pack - with lesson plans, DVDs, artefacts and photographs - as well as a half-day workshop at the start of the programme.
Communications between teachers of the linked schools will be facilitated, allowing them to exchange information on teaching methods and curriculums. Travel Counsellors, a travel company, is funding Plan UK to build five IT resource centres near the remote schools, which will allow teachers to communicate by email and via a dedicated intranet portal.
Pupils will communicate across continents by writing up to three longhand letters a year or by one-to-one messaging or blogs on the secure website.

HOW TO DONATE

London schools that wish to link with schools in Africa as part of the Plan UK School Linking programme should email link@plan-international.org.uk or telephone 02074829777
Interested schools can also visit the website on www.planschoolslink.org
Readers who wish to donate money to improve facilities for schools in Africa can do so either through the website www.plan-uk.org/eveningstandard/ or by sending cheques to "Plan UK", marked "Evening Standard Christmas Appeal" on the back, and addressed to Evening Standard Christmas Appeal, Evening Standard, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT.
Readers who wish to become closely associated with a school in Africa and help set up a link between it and a London school can also agree their own "sponsorship" fee with Plan UK.