FINDING water in Britain is easy . . . you just turn on the tap. But a Malvern teenager has just returned from a country where life is very different.

Helen Parker, 16, took the trip-of-a-lifetime to Ethiopia, where she saw how a charity is working to make water available to everyone.

The Malvern Girls' College pupil visited a village with no fresh water supply, where the women walk for five miles a day to fetch water from a dirty pond for their families.

Helen was able to compare it with two other villages where Water Aid had provided clean water via a borehole pump at one and a gravity-fed system at the other.

"Water's like the first domino in the sequence," she said. "Once it happens, everything else follows and things get better."

Helen spent nine days in Ethiopia after winning a competition run by Water Aid, Severn Trent and Central News. The contest invited youngsters to submit a piece of work about surviving on one bucket of dirty water a day. Dying for a Drink, a song composed by Helen, was one of three winning entries.

"A really good moment was when we went to the third village and a little girl told me she was able to go to school because she didn't have to fetch water," said Helen.

"There was a big difference between her and the children in the first village who were really unhealthy and not able to go to school."

Helen, who went on the trip with her mum Deborah Hume, also had the chance to visit the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where they saw how the charity Progynist was improving the slums by installing water systems and running schools.

Another charity, the Gashe Abera Molla Association, had built public toilets and was encouraging young homeless people to start their own business by charging people using them a small fee.

Dancing a traditional shoulder dance at a christening and visiting the Bale National Park were some of the lighter moments of the trip.

Helen and Deborah said the Ethiopian people were curious about them, happy to see them and welcomed them into their homes wherever they went.

Deborah said the families were amazed when she used an instant camera to take and hand out pictures.

Helen's Ethiopian experience was filmed by Central News and will be broadcast in January.

To make a donation to Water Aid, call 020 7793 4526.