A LITTLE girl from Southampton is helping those less fortunate than herself this summer.

Five year old Lillie Monk, from Freemantle, has set herself an altruistic challenge this summer of raising funds for international water aid charity, Just a Drop.

“Lillie recently complained that I had burnt her breakfast pancake," said her mother, Lisa Mckenner.

"I explained to her that she's lucky to have nice food and fresh water to drink because some children in poor countries have very little.

"Lillie was upset by this and so decided she was going to raise some money to send to countries to help give children and families clean fresh water”.

Along with visiting the zoo, spending time on the beach and playing in the park, Lillie set herself six fundraising tasks - one for each week of the holidays.

Her tasks have been to run 100 laps of her garden, fill jars with sweets and get people to play 'guess how many sweets in the jar’, do 200 star jumps, read five books every day for a week, face paint five adults and five children and skip for 100 minutes.

So far she has raised £65 for Just a Drop and hopes to raise £100 for the charity by the end of her school holiday.

Just a Drop has reached approximately 1.5 million people since its beginnings in 1998. The aim of the charity is to address the shocking statistic that a child dies every 20 seconds from a water-related disease – which means more children under the age of five years old die from this than from malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS combined.

"Lillies dad and I are extremely proud of Lillie," added Lisa.

"She has taken it upon herself to help others, and has been working extra hard to complete these challenges with enthusiasm and determination.We are both very proud of her and have encouraged her throughout."

Lillie added:"I wanted to do something kind because she didn't want people drinking dirty water. I hope I can raise lots and lots of money."

To support Lillie, visit her JustGiving page: justgiving.com/Lillieisfundraising/ To find out more about Just a Drop’s work or to make a donation, visitjustadrop.org