Aston Villa: World Cup WAG Chantelle Tagoe reveals the horror of a far-from-glamorous trip to South Africa

May 10 2010 by Roz Laws, Sunday Mercury

SLEEPING next to rats and cockroaches, meeting abused orphans and people dying of Aids – it’s a far cry from the glamorous life of a WAG.

Yet that’s what Chantelle Tagoe endured to draw attention to a side of South Africa which the World Cup players won’t see.

Chantelle, the fiancée of Aston Villa striker Emile Heskey, says witnessing the crime-ridden poverty and deprivation was “a life-changing experience”.

She is still haunted by the face of 16-year-old Andiswa, a girl who has had to cope with unimaginable horrors in her short life.

Now she wants to visit her new friend again – and introduce her famous boyfriend, who could be playing for England in the tournament this summer.

Chantelle is one of five WAGs who agreed to leave their pampered lives behind to experience the reality of life behind the gloss of the World Cup.

They visited South Africa for a new five-part BBC series, WAGs, Kids and World Cup Dreams, which begins next week.

Chantelle joined Solihull glamour girl Amii Grove (ex-girlfriend of Jermaine Pennant), Elen Rivas (former partner of Chelsea star Frank Lampard), Ellie Darby (girlfriend of West Ham’s Matthew Upson) and Imogen Thomas (ex of Jermaine Defoe) in helping out in some of the poorest neighbourhoods.

Chantelle, who has two sons with Emile – four-year-old Jaden and two-year-old Reigan – started her emotional visit by living and working in Baphumelele Children’s Home, an orphanage near Cape Town caring for 150 children.

It is in an area of shanty towns, home to the two million people evicted from their homes during the apartheid regime.

She says: “It was such an eye-opener, to see people living in such poverty.

“I was expecting it to be bad but nothing could have prepared me for what we saw. It was so emotional, we were just in bits all the time. I cried a lot.

“I looked after 10 children at the orphanage, cooking and cleaning and being a mum to them. I coped fairly well because I have two boys, but Amii and Imogen don’t have kids and they looked bewildered!

“It made me realise how lucky I am to have two healthy and happy sons, I wish it could be the same for all children.

“I got to know Andiswa and just before we left she confided in me. She told me she had been raped by her father since she was little and was HIV positive. She’d had to have an operation on her stomach because of damage he had done to her.

“It was such a sad story but by no means unusual. Rape and HIV are horribly common in South Africa.”

In fact, 11 per cent of the population is HIV positive and a study last year by the Medical Research Council revealed one in four men has admitted raping a woman.

The second place Chantelle stayed in was a church which had been turned into a shelter for refugees fleeing Zimbabwe.