Finding meaning in helping others

McCall, 41, most famous for working herself and the crowd outside the Big Brother house into a frenzy, is an intriguing woman. In person she is thoughtful and quietly spoken. It's obvious from the way she describes her experiences in Africa, where she made films for our appeal that you can watch online, that her difficult background makes her hypersensitive to other people's pain; though in this case, she says, she can only 'sympathise rather than empathise. The troubles I went through, you could say, were self-inflicted'.
The charity work she does now is part of that recovery. 'There's a motto in the 12-step programme [the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery programme], "You can only keep what you have by giving it away," and I get so much back from the experiences I've had. I hope I enrich my children's lives with my stories of where I've been, and if I can do anything to help anyone else, I will.'
Travelling to Liberia was one of the most 'intense, emotional' trips she has ever done.
 Excerpts from the Sunday Times; to read the full text, see online Liberia was 'intense, emotional'.
Davina's visit is part of Save The Children's Kingsville Project, that The Sunday Times is supporting. Kingsville is a rural community of Liberia, 54 km from Monrovia, where 22,000 people live precariously.