If Ebola was an emergency based around a tiny virus that often killed before it was discovered, the deep brown gash on a Freetown hillside is a sign of a disaster of a very different nature. Like Rio de Janiero on the other side of the Atlantic, Sierra Leone’s capital is built on spectacular coastal hills, and is overshadowed by a… Read more →←
It’s a Saturday night and my phone memory is full again. Another 53 messages have come through from Uttarkhand, and then 37 more from Telangana. Scrolling through them is a rainbow of colour and activity with the bright clothes of women health workers blurring as my finger scrolls with the red and white dots of the campaign… Read more →←
My sons Abhiyan, 7, and Aarambh, 4, were exclusively breastfed until they six months and continued breastfeeding until they were two years old. I felt a rush of happiness and satisfaction as I typed this sentence. I feel blessed that both are healthy, intelligent, and happy boys: I firmly believe that the super powers of breastmilk had… Read more →←
New research shows that an investment of just $4.70 per newborn over the next 10 years would be enough to increase the rate of children under six months who are exclusively breastfed to at least 50 percent, the global target. The result of this $5-per-child investment? Saving more than 500,000 children’s lives. The research was… Read more →←
The scale of destruction and depth of suffering is mind-blowing. It is hard to imagine life in these conditions. These are the thoughts that hit me as we arrived in the so-called ‘buffer zone’ just outside of besieged Al-Nashabiyeh in east Ghouta, rural Damascus. Burnt trees, rubble, and damaged buildings lined the streets as we… Read more →←
“I was a little girl when I came from Syria, I was 11 years old and just thinking about toys; now I have grown up,” says Omaima, as the 16 year old reflects on her time in Za’atari, nearly one third of her life. “I used to think that when I got to the camp it would be like a picnic, like a garden to play with my friends. Then I… Read more →←
There is life before the crisis, and life since the crisis. A small spark ignited a wave of conflict. The Kasaï region has become a synonym for unbelievable atrocities and immeasurable violence. Most people have probably never heard of the Kasai and would probably struggle to locate it a map. But now militias, mystical attacks,… Read more →←
The conflict in the Central African Republic follows a line that is the boundary between the savannah and the tropical interior of Central Africa. On that line is Bossangoa, a city at the centre of a range of conflicts that gripped the country in 2013 and 2014. Residents fled to displacements camps and across the border to Cameroon and… Read more →←
As heavy fighting rages in Raqqa, more than 200,000 people, half of them children, have been forced to flee their homes. They risk everything to reach safety. Many travel on roads full of landmines, or dodge shelling and snipers. One of their destinations is Ain Issa, 50 kilometres from the front lines in Raqqa city. The Ain Issa camp… Read more →←
Colombia is an enchanted land of magical realism and contrasts. It’s a country in which millions of creatures coexist in peace, making it a true paradise of biodiversity. Yet despite the country’s growing wealth, inequality in Colombia has also grown, and rural areas are the most affected. Indigenous people and Afro-Colombians… Read more →←
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