I was recently asked to write about ‘Why I do what I do’. Since then, I have been in search of a detailed answer, but every time I ask myself, my simple reply is: Why wouldn’t I?

When I see a hungry child begging, working or, worst of all, sleeping on the streets, my instinct is to want to nurture them and give them what they are so obviously lacking. It is with awareness of the bigger picture, and the investment of time and energy I put into providing options for these children, that I manage to hold myself back.

That is partly a maternal aspect of human nature, and having my own young family to look after makes me even more conscious of children and families without the same opportunities.. But the work we do with the ABC Trust is something that came from a long-term desire to help. It was when I was 11 years old that I discovered what my lifelong passion would be.

We were living in Buenos Aires and it was 1984, the heyday of breakdancing. My best friend and I were determined to spend our weekends learning the moves, and to show them off on the pedestrian streets in the city centre.

We were sent off by our parents with enough money for good meals and cinema tickets, but as soon as we were in the lift, we were taking off our outer clothes (with our dancing garb underneath) and getting our boom-box out of the rucksack.

As soon as we started spinning on the cardboard a crowd would gather – but we were proud middle-class children and never put out a hat.

One day, the crowd was going back five rows and people were just dropping money onto our makeshift stage. By then we had befriended some street children who found our show fascinating, and we invited seven of them to lunch. As soon as we walked into McDonald’s, a big treat at the time, the waiter demanded the filthy barefoot children leave, but we insisted they were our guests.

My friend and I were delighted at the scene we had created. We had made sure the street children had exactly what they wanted. What we hadn’t envisioned was with what ravenous hunger they would gobble up everything, to the very last crumb.

As they ate in desperation, tthe injustice I felt was so strong, I pushed my food towards them and made a vow to do everything I could to stop this atrocity. I was outraged. As my friend and I walked back home, I looked at every adult passing us with disgust. How could anyone possibly allow this to happen?

Ten years on, after several experiences in community development and time spent in orphanages throughout Latin America, I helped found Graos de Luz (Seeds of Light) in Bahia, Brazil. This was just before I met my partner of 12 years, the guitarist Jimmy Page. In our very first conversation we spoke of our desire to give children shelter, care and opportunities they would otherwise not have.

As I accompanied Jimmy on tour, I wrote and designed a leaflet I intended to use to raise the minimal funds needed to run the community project I had left behind. This was to be the first project the ABC Trust supported. Little did I know that several years later, they would win a UNICEF prize and grow to be able to offer advice and support to dozens of other organisations across Brazil.

The ABC Trust has been going a few years now. We have supported 22 projects across Brazil to the tune of just over £1 million and projects supported by ABC directly reach 3,000 children and their families every day. We have moved from just funding to providing additional support, which secures long-term viability for projects, and introducing our partners to the others in our networks. As well as supporting projects which provide shelter and care we now focus more on education and working through the arts to really connect with children who desperately need new ways of seeing their lives.

We are also keen to highlight misrepresentative impressions of Brazil, which are vastly at odds with some grim realities. We recently started to work with Cinema Nosso, which was set up by City Of God director Fernando Meirelles, and whose film brought to prominence some of the issues we are concerned with.

Fernando is one of a number of amazing patrons who now support ABC Trust – including Juliette Lewis, Jeremy Irons, Brian May, and Pelé – each of whom are only too happy to use their privilege and profile to help raise awareness and financial support.

Jimena Page is founder of the ABC Trust (Action for Brazil’s Children) and lives and works between London and Brazil. She was married to Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page for 12 years, and has three young children. www.abctrust.org.uk