AN EAST Lancashire mum is hoping to use her celebrity contacts to raise £200,000 to help the poor.

Jo Harris will use the cash to send an ingenious gift to countries with poor access to clean drinking water.

Jo wants to send portable water purifiers to Burma in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis, and other parts of eastern Asia and Africa.

The bright blue Lifestraws, worth £2.50 each, help to prevent common diarroheal dis-ease and can be carried around for easy access to safe and clean drinking water.

Jo, who runs JenJo events with business partner Jennifer Shaw, is using her vast business contacts to help them round up celebrities for a charity bash in Manchester to raise vital cash.

Jo, a former Whiteacre Boarding School pupil, said: "It was just by chance that I started talking about these straws but since then it's really taken off.

"I can get a drink when I want.

"It's a basic human right, but these people haven't got that oppor-tunity."

Water from most sources can be drunk through the LifeStraw, according to the Danish innovator, Torben Vestergaard Frandsen.

Inside are filters and a chamber impregnated with iodine, which remove the bacteria from the water as it is drunk.

Jo from Higher Ashes Lane, Todmorden, but who grew up in Whalley, added: "We want to send 80,000 of these Lifestraws to these people. That's why Jennifer and I are helping organise this event.

"We have 45 tables on sale and we want as many people as we can get at this event."

Salahuddin Choudary, ex-consul general of Pakistan and president of Rotary International, Man-chester, initiated the event after his experiences working for the UN in Yugoslavia during the war.

He said: "I saw some remarkable experiences of life and death while I was there. It gave me a passion for working for humanity and I decided, when I joined the Rotary, to make it a mega project.

"I met Jo through a mutual friend and she was delighted to help. I am amazed with her passion and patience."

The Element, the fund-raising red-carpet event is at the Sheridan Suite, Oldham Road, Manchester, at 7pm on World Food Day - Thursday, October 16.

Forty-fiven celebrity gue-sts including stars from Coronation Street and Emmerdale, will be on hand at the multi-cultural dinner, where guests will have the opportunity to bid for their donated items.