Coronation Street actress Helen Worth has spent five days in Sierra Leone to raise awareness of poverty in the West African country.
The soap star, who plays Weatherfield’s unlucky-in-love Gail Platt, teamed up with the charity ActionAid and flew out to the war-torn region last week. She returned to the UK on Monday.
Reflecting on her experience, which saw her visiting a number of different villages, Worth told the Yorkshire Post: “They do their best to help themselves. Everywhere we went we had an amazing welcome – smiling happy people who gave us more than they had. It was very emotional.”
During her stay in the country, the 58-year-old was shown areas which had been assisted by ActionAid and communities still in need of help.
Discussing a day when she visited a rubbish dump, Worth explained: “Around it people had built shacks and families were living alongside pigs who were eating the rubbish. They would then sell the pigs. Even in this most horrendous of places they were doing their best to earn a living. It was the one place that I just had to turn away.”
She continued: “There is still a lot of work to do in Sierra Leone, but I feel privileged to have seen it and to bring the message back and ask people, if they can, to help by sponsoring a child through ActionAid, as that is the only way their lives can improve.” ActionAid is an international development charity which aims to help poor and vulnerable people in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
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