Monday, 15 March 2010

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Kimberley Walsh: I broke down on Sport Relief trip

Now's Guest Editor on her moving visit to Africa

Kimberley Walsh went to Uganda for Sport Relief

Being surrounded by poverty and death in Uganda was a life changing experience 
for Kimberley Walsh.

Visiting a hospital brought home the seriousness of Sport Relief's much needed work in the region.

'I was told the story of a woman called Jacqueline who was pregnant and had contracted malaria,' says Kimberley, 28. 

'She arrived there two days before we did, but her husband didn't get her to hospital in time. She had anaemia and her conditioned snowballed until she was convulsing. Both her and her baby died.

'They had to remove the baby, and the poor husband had to bury them both. I found the fact that preventing their deaths could have been as simple as having a mosquito net so hard to get my head around.'

Kimberley admits that on occasion her emotions got the better of her.

‘I did break down and I had to go outside to pull myself together,' she says.

‘I didn't feel I had the right to cry, though, and I had to remind myself that these people are dealing with it everyday, so they don't need me getting upset about it.'

Read Kimberley Walsh's full story in Now magazine dated 22 March - out now! 5p from every copy sold goes to Sport Relief*

* 5p donation from UK newsstand sales of Now magazine only, as confirmed by audited ABC newsstand sales figures. In support of Sport Relief, an initiative of Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales); SC039730 (Scotland).  

Karen Dunn