The one lesson I’ve learned from life

Singer Corinne Bailey Rae

Corinne Bailey rae, 38, is a Grammy award-winning British singer. Her third and latest album, The Heart Speaks in Whispers, was released last year. Corinne lives in leeds with her second husband.

WE SHOULD ALL HELP OTHERS MORE

a lesson i learned early on is how powerful people can be in making change happen.

i grew up in leeds, and in my teenage years i went to a left-wing liberal church called Moortown Baptist Church, which was really into social action.

a group from the church visited prisoners in jail; another went out to orphanages in Romania. so i grew up in an environment that was all about what you were going to do to help other people.

at my sixth form, i was part of a small charity that provided rough sleepers with drinks, sandwiches and sleeping bags. Then, a year after my song Put your Records On had charted, i was invited to go to Malawi to see the work a charity called Pump aid was doing.

it was set up by three teachers who had seen a child die from diarrhoea brought on by drinking poisoned water when they were working in rural Zimbabwe. They saw the problem — there wasn’t enough clean protected drinking water for people in the area — and decided to do something about it.

They did some research and came up with a plan to install protected wells.

The charity has since grown and now advises bigger organisations about this common problem that affects millions of people across the world.

i’ve worked with Pump aid for ten years now and it has changed my attitude towards water. so many of us take it for granted, so i do my bit to limit how much we use at home.

i think stories like this — of how normal people have managed to make such a difference — should encourage us all to think about what we could be doing for others.

if you can see a way of helping someone — go for it! you don’t know what you can achieve until you try.

Corinne Bailey rae will be performing at Blenheim Palace on June 17 and at The love Supreme Jazz Festival on July 1, nocturnelive. com and lovesupremefestival.com.