My visit to Malawi - what an eye opener

Last week was quite a week as 17 of us covered a lot of ground in our visits to schools and orphanages in Malawi.

The trip was designed to help us see for ourselves how the One Water PlayPumps scheme works on the ground. It would be fair to say that our eyes were well and truly opened. I suspect that for some if not all of the group it will be a life-changing event.

Why you may ask? What's all the fuss about?

For me, it's all about two things; compared to Malawi, and many parts of Africa, we have it so good in the UK, and secondly, providing access to clean drinking water can have a huge beneficial impact. One of the most stunning phrases we heard during the week sums it up in three words: 'water is life'.

The trip reinforced for me the conclusions I reached from last year's visit to Lesotho - that the PlayPumps concept is truly amazing. Contrary to the views held by some people, it does not use child slave labour. The socio-economic benefits it brings to villages in the African bush are significant.

I'm in two minds, however, on how we in the UK best support this initiative. On the one hand I'm impressed with the relatively simple strategy of Aramark (the BBC's catering partner who, along with our FM partner JCI, support BBC premises), only stocking and selling the One Water product. Over the last 18 months, sales of One Water have delivered three pumps, with a fourth on the way.

Thanks to everyone in the catering teams who push the sales. Remember every 70,000 bottles sold gets us another pump!

Then on the other hand, having seen for the second time the battle for life, the appalling deprivation and the needless suffering of little children, I'm embarrassed we're not doing enough. We take so much for granted in the UK and in Western countries generally.

Once again, this type of trip has provided me with another opportunity to ground my thinking about what's really important in life. Having seen for myself how things play out on the ground the following three words sum it up for me: it's so wrong. We in Western society have our problems but compared with these countries we have an abundance of riches and we take it all for granted. Sharing even a little would make a huge difference to people in Africa and other disadvantaged places around the world.

Writing this on the long journey home (roughly 26 hours), I debated with myself how best to provide a concise summary of the week gone by. Apart from reporting the facts I also feel the need to talk about the emotions we felt, the experience we shared and the insights we gleaned. I'll have a go at this over the next few weeks with the help of some of my fellow travellers but let me wrap up this report with some facts taken from our trip:

• 2,700 kilometres travelled within Malawi (excluding flights)
• 3,000 pupils visited in the various schools
• Malawi's population has one of the highest HIV rates in the world
• Only 7% of the 12 million population have electricity
• 36 - 40 is the average life expectancy
• One elephant was seen during our travels.