Cheerful students have been helping Asda shoppers to pack their bags to ensure children around the world have access to the clean water they need.

The Loreto students and staff raised over £600 for the charity Water for Kids which provides safe water, sanitation and health education for children and communities in developing countries.

And students will be back bag packing this weekend (Sunday 19th December) to raise even more money and to help everyone get into the Christmas spirit.

Health and Social Care teacher Ms Garner helped organise the packing and said the students thoroughly enjoyed it.

“The charity we are helping was formed by Council Environmental Health Officers who raise money all year round and then give part of their own summer holidays to help communities in Africa to improve their own environmental health facilities,” she said.

Since 1996 Water for Kids has provided safe water to children and their communities in several countries across the developing world including Peru, Tanzania and Sierre Leone

More than 880 million people throughout the world do not have access to safe water and 2.5 billion people have no access to basic sanitation, according to the UK government. Diarrhoeal diseases such as cholera, dysentery and typhoid kill thousands of children every day.