Indy Appeal

Independent Appeal: Conservation in a war zone

The gunmen came out of the forest at dawn. "They were shielded by the mist," said Jean-Claude Kyungu, the senior scientist at the Mount Tshiaberimu research station. He meant the ghostly white clouds that drift over the hills of the Virungas National Park, the mist of Gorillas in the Mist.

Inside Indy Appeal

Daily battle to keep children alive in Liberia's orphanages

Saturday, 5 January 2008

Peter H Toe, a slow-moving 78-year-old with rheumy eyes and deep frown lines, is considering the daily dilemma he faces finding enough food for the 52 children in his care. "They say if you can feed a chicken until it's not hungry any more you can feed a child," he laughs scornfully as he pretends to peck in the dust like a scavenging bird. "But everyone knows chickens and children are always hungry."

Independent Appeal: The new cooking stove that protects African wildlife by cutting human need

Friday, 4 January 2008

In the end, you have to do it sideways. That's the principal lesson. You can't solve the clash of interests between Africa's wildlife, and Africa's millions living in poverty, by simply telling the latter they can't touch the former.

Independent Appeal: Education brings hope for child workers of India

Thursday, 3 January 2008

When you see her sitting with the other children - her hair tied in ponytails and her face in a smile it is hard to believe 13-year-old Thenmozhi has not been a pupil since her youngest days. She is attentive, enthusiastic and clearly very bright.

Independent Appeal: School wildlife clubs help give Uganda's gorillas a future

Wednesday, 2 January 2008

"Our next song," announces 11-year-old Robert Ntegereje, at the front of his primary school class, "is about how we can look after the gorillas by planting trees where they can live." It's hardly an announcement you'd hear in a school in Britain.

Dear Sissy: West Africa's newest agony aunt takes on sexual traumas left by a civil war

Tuesday, 1 January 2008

Usman has issues with girls. The teenager is so anxious about his failure to attract any, that he writes a desperate letter to a woman he has never met.

Independent Appeal: Micro-credit can make a massive difference to lives in Africa

Monday, 31 December 2007

The business is only small scale but it's a profitable one. It involves driving two hours to Lake Kivu, on the Congo's eastern border, three times a week and bringing back to the town of Rutshuru a load of fish from the fishermen who work the lake: usually tilapia, big solid fish with plenty of protein. They are popular in Rutshuru, and they can be sold at a premium.

Independent Appeal: Helping girls escape from domestic slavery

Saturday, 29 December 2007

The rope tore skin from her hands and arms as she slid down but 17-year-old Maria didn't mind for it was the only way out of the apartment building which had been her virtual prison for over nine months.

Independent Appeal: Teenager's survival guide to living with Aids

Friday, 28 December 2007

When Yemurai's mother and father died from Aids, she and her two younger brothers went to live with their grandparents. Three years on, her grandmother is showing the symptoms of Aids, contracted through cross-infection when caring for her dying daughter.

Independent Appeal: Congolese women who have suffered so much reap the rewards of conservation

Thursday, 27 December 2007

Anyone who has seen African women working in the countryside knows they will sing at the drop of a hat, on any subject that seems appropriate, and this group hoeing a field in the Democratic Republic of Congo are singing like champions, even if they've chosen a theme not often found in the British music charts: agricultural development.

Independent Appeal: Children who can only dream about the world outside their school gates

Wednesday, 26 December 2007

Though he's a Muslim, 10-year-old Mohammed Yunis's dream is to go to Bethlehem on a field trip. "I would like to go to the Church of Nativity, because Jesus was born there," he announces during morning break in the overcrowded, rubble-strewn little lot that serves as the only school playground here.

More indy appeal: