Tom Hiddleston, Thu, Jan 24 2013 2:32 PM

It’s day two for actor Tom Hiddleston on his first trip with UNICEF UK, visiting Guinea in West Africa. Tom will be meeting with Guinean children, families and communities. He’ll also be seeing several UNICEF projects, and finding out about our work in child protection, education, and water and sanitation. Read his first post here.

I must be as honest as I can. As I sit down to write tonight, I make that commitment. Over the last two days, I have experienced joy and sadness in equal measure. I have been delighted, enlightened and confused. The UNICEF team here in Guinea have given me such a comprehensive introduction to their programs for children, and their implementation of those programs, that a picture of life in Guinea is beginning to emerge. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle: one where the pieces keep moving or changing shape, which in turn alters the picture. You might be looking at it from a different angle, or at a different time of day. It depends where you got the information, and who gave it to you. You might be filling in the blanks, taking wild stabs in the dark. It’s all open to interpretation.

Nevertheless: I must be as honest as I can.

My second day in Guinea began with a visit to the National Institute of Child Health and Nutrition (INSE) in the Donka Hospital in Conakry. Immediately I was introduced to Guinea’s most experienced doctors and child-care specialists, in whose charge are some of the country’s most severely malnourished children.

Any surges of adventurous adrenalin that I had previously felt about travelling in West Africa were tempered immediately by the sight of these children. The doctors and nurses were helpful and informative about the specific details of each of the children’s individual problems, but I was simply overwhelmed by the sight of so many small infants in such great need. One small ward – about the size of a single room in a two-star or three-star hotel in the UK – housed at least twenty children, some of whom I was told had slim chances of survival. Their arms and legs were indescribably thin, their cheeks tear-stained, their skin a harrowing, slate-grey. Most shocking to me was the speed and urgency of their breathing, asleep or awake, but it was uniformly unsettled and uneven. When you see a child struggling so hard simply to breathe, it makes your heart hurt. Many of these children had lung infections, and most if not all had been admitted because of malnutrition, or an inheritance of a condition due to the malnutrition of their mothers.

The doctors here are doing everything they can, with deep reservoirs of expertise, experience, calmness and compassion, but they need more and better equipment, as well as greater capacity. In the ward of twenty children, there was one life-support machine supplying oxygen. Just one. In a room full of twenty.

One child, awake, lying still, painfully gaunt, watched me carefully as the doctors took me around the room. “Elle a la maladie,” said an advisor, “mais elle est tres attentif.” She was so attentive, so aware, her mind locked inside her body. She, like her neighbouring children, was helpless.

I am shown into a room where I find two of the smallest children I have ever seen. One was born with a terrible skin condition, due a lack of essential vitamin A, the other was born three months premature. The sight of these two children left me speechless. The skin of the first child was as dry as tracing paper.

Many of these children are admitted with chronic malnutrition. Malnutrition is a difficult idea to grasp fully until you have seen children like these. Immediately questions arise. Why? What are the causes? The UNICEF team are quick with answers: Firstly, many children are not breast-fed from birth. They are only breast-fed for a short time, and thereafter with water, which is often unclean and rife with disease. The mothers themselves are malnourished and the disease is passed on hereditarily to the child, and often, at birth there was no provision for vaccination for the child. I’ll return to these subjects again and again. These are the corner-pieces to the jigsaw puzzle, never mind the fragmentation of the bigger picture: breast-feeding, water, sanitation, maternal care & education, vaccination.

It wasn’t all bad news at Donka. I met a newborn boy, whose mother had been previously diagnosed with HIV, but the disease had not been passed on to him. He woke up as I was passing by and was full of smiles and curiosity. UNICEF supplied the treatment that protected him from being infected.

It’s also important to say that at Donka they have a cure rate of 65%. The Institute is staffed by highly skilled professionals, who work tirelessly to save lives, but there is a lack of essential medicines, and a poor supply of equipment. As Julien Harneis pointed out to me later, I am witnessing child care at a National level, in the concentrated urbanised area of Conakry. In more remote parts of the country, however, there are different solutions within the culture and practice of local communities. It’s not necessarily the children who need the attention, it’s their mothers. Help the mothers – help the children.

Before we set off on the road to visit these rural communities, we stop off to visit Project Tinafan. We drive past football pitches, past a blurred quilt of football club colours from all around the world, but we drive pastthe football. We are here to watch the circus. Tinafan is a project designed to develop the capacities and social/economic inclusion of children who may have dropped out of school, and depend on their livelihood on meagre income from unskilled labour. Tinafan uses training in the circus arts to strengthen their confidence, bolster their interpersonal skills, and help them trust each other. All of this sounds a little dry. As far as I can see, as soon as I open the car door, these children aredancing. I hear pounding drums. I see running, jumping, smiling, free-wheeling, cart-wheeling energy rushing towards me. I see fit, strong, smiling, athletes, fit to burst. The thoughtfulness brought on by what I had seen at Donka was instantly dispelled by the sheer, thrilling, joy radiating from these children. We were invited inside the gym where they train to watch a show. A band was already whipping the crowd into a frenzy, while activity billowed behind a curtain. The band consisted of at least five drummers and two xylophones and little else. Their rhythm was propulsive and electric. I’m not sure what my expectations were, but they were entirely blown out of the water. I must be as honest as I can: these children are world-class performers of astonishing athleticism and grace. The best among them, I later learned, have toured the world with circus troupes. Their performance was explosive and dizzying – acrobatics, human pyramids, trampolining, contortionists – a display of strength, flexibility and precision on a par with, if not beyond, the very best physical performances I have seen in ballet, contemporary dance, or Cirque du Soleil. They performed with raw joy. Their trainer “Prince” also teaches them how to paint, emphasising to me that how important it is for his students to understand the power of passion and positivity in creativity after the human body passes its peak.

In one morning: a picture of sickness and disease juxtaposed immediately with a picture of health and well-being. Both true. Both in need of clear-sighted, practical attention and continued support. Two different pieces of the puzzle.

We hit the road. A bumpy road of pot holes, red dust and mango trees. The red dust is bauxite, Guinea’s primary export. It’s a beautiful country. It’s hot and humid. Smoke settles in the valley like an ethereal mist, just below the tree line. It’s from the blackening of the crops, or from cooking fires from local dwellings.

There is only one main road through Guinea, and we were on it, headed east into the rural part of the country. Along the way there are various checkpoints manned by groups armed military stopping the local vehicles ahead of us, but our 4x4 vehicles are waved straight through. Nobody stops a UNICEF transport – a blindingly clear example of the kind of respect accorded to the organisation, its representatives and workers, in the entire country at every level. In other villages, women and children sitting on the side of the street applaud as we drive by. Everybody knows UNICEF’s influence and reach is important and indispensible.

After a six-hour drive, which for me passed quickly thanks to Julien’s eloquence on the problems afflicting the country, we arrived around night-fall at the town of Saramoussayah. It’s dark. Very dark. We are here to stay the night: to meet the local elders, the mayor, the doctors and teachers, and to chair a focus group with women on key family practices for child protection against disease. We are given a warm welcome. At the presentation our group to the elders of the community I’m struck by the seriousness, strength and wisdom etched on the faces of these men and women. Their sense of collective responsibility is deeply inspiring, and humbling. They are all almost exclusively teachers, doctors, nurses, or involved in the centre de santé, the health centre. After our delegation is presented, we are invited to eat. Julien sets a careful example, and asks to wash his hands before we eat. One of the most important messages UNICEF can help to communicate is this kind of habitual hygiene. Mothers should wash their hands before and after preparing food, they should wash their hands after cleaning and washing their babies and children, they should teach their children to wash their hands.

After a supper of rice, sauce, and banana, I am invited to join a Focus Group for women, chaired by the DPS, the Directrice Prefectorale de Santé, Dr Mariam Kankanlabe Diallo. I find her incredibly impressive. She seems wise and experienced, with deeply kind eyes. She commands respect in the local community because of her education. And she, like all women in the Mamou region, dresses in clothes and a headdress of brilliant colour. We are escorted away from the centre of the village, seated in a circle of benches behind some out-houses, sharing the darkness with the cows, the crickets, and the stars. We agree to touch on three subjects: washing, breast-feeding, and vaccinations. It takes a while for the women to trust us; it takes a while for them to want to talk. We have to make them feel they are in a sufficiently safe environment to air their concerns. The near pitch-black darkness adds to the anonymity.

Two things emerge that I find most surprising. The first is about breast-feeding. Some of the women confess to not knowing that it was recommended to exclusively breast-feed for as long as possible, at least up to six months. Some confess to giving their infants water after a month or two, simply on the assumption that water cannot be bad for a child, but it can especially bad when there are also local problems with sanitation and the cleanliness of water. Others confess to trying to give their child food days and weeks after birth. Some confess they didn’t breast-feed at all. What surprises me is the general lack of education about maternal care. It is not at all the fault of these mothers, many of whom are young girls. It’s simply that they didn’t know what was best. Maternal care was open to interpretation.

The second surprise is a positive one. I ask about vaccination. I’m greeted by a unanimous hum of approval when the word is mentioned – so loud and affirmative that it makes me smile. Vaccinations were unilaterally made available to everyone. Every woman confessed that the health centre stocked all the necessary and appropriate vaccines, and nobody registered a single complaint. Their children were inoculated: BCG, Polio etc. all the bases were covered. While they were still talking amongst themselves Pauline reminded me that all the vaccinations in this region of the country are provided by UNICEF. Every single one. They are not provided by the state.

This begins to illustrate the sensitive position of an organisation like UNICEF must occupy in a country like Guinea. On a developmental level, in the long term, it’s counter productive for an organisation to come in and simply fix a problem, at a macro or micro level, because as soon as they leave the inhabitants of the country are left high and dry. UNICEF has to work, crucially, alongside the authorities, (governmental and local) so that these communities can self-educate and self-sustain. UNICEF workers are trusted, and they inspire trust and confidence. And yet the humanitarian imperative is to save lives and allow people to live with dignity. If UNICEF did not make provision for vaccination, if they did not work with local communicators, if they did not fund and support health centres like the one at Saramoussaya, there would be many more children like those I saw at Donka.

Julien closes the meeting carefully. He thanks all the women for their honesty. “We can’t make any promises,” he says, “but we will endeavour to work with the authorities to help.”

In one day, I’ve seen so many different children, so many different mothers, in different communities, from so many different perspectives and angles. But I can see where UNICEF is helping. In some cases it’s with policy and programming and financial support, in other cases with direct medical help, in other cases: just being there. Turning up to help. And coming back next time. To help again. A reassuring presence: constant, listening and loyal.

And so to bed. I put on my headtorch, spray myself from head to toe with Jungle Formula insect repellant, brush my teeth, say hello to the five huge spiders sharing a room with myself and Luke, slip into my mosquito net and close my eyes. There is a lot of loud activity from a cow and her friends outside the window. I like to think they are saying hello.

You can follow Tom on his first UNICEF trip at #tom_UNICEFUK, or send questions to his official Twitter account, @twhiddleston.

Tom Hiddleston, Sun, Jan 27 2013 10:46 AM

It’s day three for actor Tom Hiddleston on his first trip with UNICEF UK, visiting Guinea in West Africa. Tom will be meeting with Guinean children, families and communities. He’ll also be seeing several UNICEF projects, and finding out about our work in child protection, education, and water and sanitation. Read his first post here, or  follow Tom’s trip on Twitter at #tom_UNICEFUK and @twhiddleston.

To set the scene. Since we left Conakry, we have been driving east, driving deep into the most impoverished parts of the country, where terrain is arid, burned and rough. The road is red and dusty. On either side the land is dry and charred. We are heading east towards the border with Mali, which is closed and too dangerous for us to approach because of current instability. We won’t go as far east as that, but it’s instructive to see the poorest and most remote parts of the country, because child malnutrition, education and access to clean water will be at their worst out there.

The road is riddled with potholes, with deep trenches on each side, edging incrementally towards the tarmac, as if some terrifying creature from ancient myth had taken a huge bite out of the side. It’s difficult to drive at speed, in spite of the paucity of other vehicles on the road. For one hour, you just ride it out. After six hours, your back is twitching and your head is swimming. Occasionally we pass local taxis with every inch of space is taken up by passengers. Occasionally we pass a fuel truck, snaking at a snail’s pace around the scattered potholes like a minefield. I came expecting conditions to be hard – it appeals to my sense of adventure. I have no signal on my phone, I have nowhere else to be, I’m cut off from the rest of the world, and all I have are my thoughts and the great conversation of the team for company. It feels like borrowed time. Staring into the overarching sky. But of course the period of endurance is finite for me. In a week’s time I’ll be back in London, able to choose between the tube, a taxi, a car or bicycle to rush around at high speed. For local Guineans, this is life. These are the conditions they have to live with every day of their lives. These are the distances they have to travel: to get food, to get fuel, to wash their clothes in the river. It’s a sobering thought.

In other news, my French is improving. Inevitably there are many local languages and dialects depending on the region, but French is mostly the order of the day, especially when communicating with local communities and medical authorities. “Il faut parler en français”. Vous êtes sur?, they say. “Oui absolument, je comprends plus que je parle, mais je comprends la plupart des choses.” Necessity breeds capacity. If I want to understand, I need to listen. And besides, it’s fun.

On the French-speaking front, I was out of the frying pan and into the fire. On the morning of my third day, we were invited to the rural radio station of Bissikirima, which reaches the inhabitants in the region of Dabola in Guinea, covering some 171, 983 people. The Bissikirima radio is financed and funded by UNICEF, who also make provision for technological equipment, but it is staffed by local authority-figures of energy and eloquence. We were greeted warmly and ushered into the studio to watch a live broadcast, l’émission. The ebullient DJ welcomes two guests into the booth, and in between musical interludes, they discuss local affairs, but also broadcast important information about some of the key issues I’ve already touched on: water, sanitation, breast-feeding, childhood immunization and education. It suddenly makes me think of BBC Radio 4 and the Today programme, or NPR in the USA. The radio here keeps people informed, in touch and in the loop.

Crucially, though, the community is engaged in dialogue with itself. The mothers listening on the other end, living in the remote parts of the country have no idea that UNICEF is affiliated to the program. They are simply listening to their favourite radio DJ, who happens to be discussing the importance of water and sanitation, and the upkeep of local latrines. The same goes for the ten-year old-boy who has parked his bike by the river and is listening along on his portable transistor. Perhaps he overhears a broadcast about hand-washing. Perhaps it strikes home. UNICEF have found a unique way of helping the local community to set themselves up to be self-sustaining and self-educating. But the helping hand is invisible, just as when the UNICEF vaccines arrive in the villages to immunise new-born children against disease, without any branding on the syringes. The mothers, nurses and doctors do not know where the vaccinations come from, but they do know for sure that they come.

Ten minutes into the broadcast, there’s a phone-in. Anyone can call the helpline, and the DJ and his colleagues are there to answer their questions. It’s a brilliant idea. (Orange, the telecommunications company, has a huge presence in Guinea. It’s the only advertising I see across the country. Many cannot sign their own names; but they all have a mobile phone). Moments later, I am invited into the booth to say hello to the listeners of the region of Dabola. It’s one thing speaking my long-forgotten and broken French when conversing with a hospital doctor; it’s quite another to suddenly be addressing untold numbers of local listeners live on air, in my capacity as a UNICEF supporter. All I can do is thank them for welcoming me, and I make a promise that I will share everything I see and learn with my friends and colleagues, that I will spread the word, and bring the problems of Guinea to the attention of the UK, and thereafter the world. The radio at Bissikirima is another tool for communication and education. It’s one more drop in the ocean, which might one day turn the tide.

Communication is the key. After the broadcast I am introduced to a kindly, lean, venerable man with a greying beard, dressed in mauve silks. He is a “traditional communicator”. He has come to tell us how he conveys similar messages to those who perhaps don’t listen to the radio, nor pay any heed to the advice of the local DPS (the chief medical officer) or UNICEF representatives after they have gone. He asks if we would like a demonstration of how he talks to more conservative members of the community about their problems. I would like that very much. “Very well,” he replies, “this is how I talk to the grandfathers about the girls who cut themselves”. His last words hang in the air. I don’t quite understand and have to turn to Pauline for further clarification. He is going to tell us how he combats the continued practice of the genital mutilation of young women. It takes a moment to fully understand this. I am profoundly shocked to hear that there is such a practice. But he is already on his feet. He’s a terrific actor.

“Where do you receive the power?”, he booms to his colleague (playing the grandfather), “where do you receive the power to tell the young women what to do with their bodies? Do you want your daughters to spend the rest of their lives in pain? Do you want your daughters to spend their lives crying into the night? And do you want your daughter’s daughters also to spend their nights crying in shame?”

95% of the women in Guinea are victims of genital mutilation. The practice is overwhelmingly the norm. Still more shocking is the fact that it is customarily performed on younger women by older women. It’s a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood: a ritual that is supposed to prepare a woman with a capacity to endure pain; a signal lesson that pain is a constant, and must not be yielded to.

The traditional communicator tells me the custom stems from the myth of Abraham. Abraham had two wives, one older, one younger (the younger having previously been a servant to the older woman). But his first wife was always jealous of the second wife – jealous of the love and affection bestowed upon her by Abraham. This was exacerbated by the fact that the first wife bore Abraham no children, while the second wife gave Abraham two sons: Isaac and Ishmael. In a fit of jealous rage, his first wife “cut” her rival, in order to make her seem less attractive and less desirable to Abraham. But Abraham’s love for his second wife did not diminish after she had been cut. His affection for her perhaps even increased. Uncomprehending and in despair, his first wife then inflicted the same mutilation upon herself. “And that is why this is the custom among women,” says the traditional communicator.

Whether most Guinean women know this story from folk history is another question, but what is disturbing is that they perceive the practice of female genital mutilation (l’excision) to be normal. It’s hard for UNICEF to strike the right balance in helping educate young and older women about this issue, especially because male circumcision has been proven significantly to reduce the risk of contracting HIV. But they are working with traditional communicators, who are trusted senior figures in rural communities, to spread the word among women that the practice of genital mutilation immeasurably increases the risk of mortality and disease in their children. It may affect the pregnancy and the health of their child. These mothers need help. Il faut aider et encourager les mamans. I realise with startling clarity once more: help the mothers – and you help the children.

Our next stop is the remote village of Loppe. We park up by the road. It’s a mile-long walk to the village through the bush. Halfway along the path a distinguished gentleman in an impeccable khaki suit and tie pulls up on a motorcycle and tells me to hop on the back. On attend la delegation. Riding pillion on the back of a motorcycle through West African countryside under the midday sun delivers a shot of speed and adrenalin. It blows away a few cobwebs. It’s great.

The atmosphere in Loppe seems peaceful and happy. We are here to visit UNICEF’s sanitation program and the latrines. The central imperative in a remote village like Loppe is to separate water sources, to keep access to the water wells clean, to protect them from run-off from the land in the rainy season, which is contaminated by animal waste, and guard the mouths of the wells from the animals themselves. We are also shown several defecation points. The UNICEF program has helped to implement key practical design developments: providing concrete covers over the latrines to keep the flies out, building concrete walls to keep the animals away, provide kettles full of water and a bar of soap to wash your hands afterwards. If there’s no bar of soap, there’s a bucket of ash that will do the trick. This basic hygiene and good sanitation raises the standard of general health, and protects mothers and children from passing on disease.

What happened next was the most uplifting experience of my journey so far. I was invited by a young family into their home. They live in a circular hut, under which is one singular room, with a circumference of about fifteen feet across. The roof is thatch made of straw. Inside I am introduced by Idrissa, the regional chief of UNICEF’s office for Eastern Guinea, to a couple and their three children, a boy and two girls. They are uniformly beautiful. The father is calm and quiet, with an open handsome face, while the mother is shy, her skin radiant, and a smile that could launch a thousand ships. Her children are well behaved, quiet and curious. Idrissa asks if I have any questions. I compliment them on their house, for it is beautiful inside. There is a bed, which serves also as bench and table, with various tools and pots hung strategically along the walls. I say how well her children look, how strong they seem. Her elder daughter reminds me of my niece. I ask if there have been any problems at all in their upbringing and nurture. “No,” she says simply. Were they born at the centre de santé? “No,” she says, “they were all born at home.”

I ask if she had easy access to vaccinations. “Yes,” she says. “The day they were born”. She says their biggest problem is that they do not have enough food. They work hard, and still there is not enough. But they grow their own rice-crop and haricots. Pauline asks if she was able to breastfeed her children. “Yes,” she says, “for six months each of them”. How did you know to do that, I ask. “I walked to the centre de santé,” she replies, “when I was pregnant. They told me I should breast-feed. Also I heard it on the radio”. That’s fantastic, I say. I tell the father I have been looking at the water situation in the village, and the new program for better water hygiene. He replies that it’s very important. He always tells his son he must wash his hands before eating. I tell him his boy is looking strong, and that when I was a child I was always taught mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body. Idrissa translates. The father says this has made his day. It is a great honour for him. He is happy.

It is heartening and stirring to talk to a family who are doing it right, and who are taking responsibility for themselves and for their children. The team at UNICEF find it deeply inspiring, as do I. The messages are being heard. It’s working.

The residents of Loppe give us a rousing send off by bursting into song as our convoy of motorbikes rev their engines and rocket off into the low afternoon sun. Buoyed up by our visit, there’s time for a piece of bread and a slice Vache Qui Rot cheese from the cool box, washed down with a can of coke and a tablet of malarone.

Then commences the long drive to Kankan. We pull on to the road, where our only company are the wandering cattle, who have become commonplace as traffic lights. Lethargic and listless, they look like they’ve been roaming the roads of Guinea since the dawn of time. And no doubt they will continue to long after we’re gone.

Tom Hiddleston, Fri, Feb 1 2013 3:08 PM

Actor Tom Hiddleston has just returned home from his trip with UNICEF UK to Guinea in West Africa. Read his first, second, third, fourth and fifth posts or follow Tom on Twitter at #tom_UNICEFUK and @twhiddleston

So that’s it.

I’m back in London. I am back in my home. Back amid the hustle and the bustle. Back amid the humdrum and the mayhem and the madness. Back to running water and the warmth of central heating. Back to a bed without a mosquito net. Back to food in the fridge and food in the cupboard and food around the corner in the supermarket.

I’ve seen things I have never seen before.

When I started writing this blog, I talked of life in Guinea as a “jigsaw puzzle, one where the pieces keep moving or changing shape, which in turn alters the picture. You might be looking at it from a different angle, or at a different time of day”. On my first night, Julien had suggested an idea of reality in Guinea as “open to interpretation”. In so many respects, that is true of all life. The view always changes with the viewer. That’s the law of relativity.

Here’s what’s not open to interpretation. Every year in the world more than two million children die of hunger. It shouldn’t be like this. Children in Guinea start life at a severe disadvantage. Those that are malnourished may survive in the end. If they are caught in time. If their mothers respond to symptoms early enough; if they make it to the centre de santé, which is often miles away; if they respond to the therapeutic peanut paste, and special therapeutic feeding milk. If their parents are able to grow crops and feed them with enough nutritious foods so they can keep healthy. If they win the fight against malaria. If they live near a good school. If they can get work. If their parents can protect them from exploitation by the military. If they are lucky. Previously malnourished children can make it. It sounds paradoxical to say it, but they are the lucky ones.

Malnourished children grow up at a disadvantage. They will be physically smaller, possibly with diminished intellectual capacity. Their brains and bodies won’t develop in the same way. Of course, there is always a chance that through hard work, education, training, and strength of will any individual can and will progress to great achievement. But these children start so far behind. The race of life – the race for life – is infinitely longer and infinitely harder. Every day there are challenges to their survival and development. Context is important. I’ve been privileged enough to have seen that context at first hand. They live in the middle of nowhere. There is no water. There is poor sanitation. There is a shortage of food. There is lack of education. Conditions are inconceivably hard: they are incredible, until you have seen them with your own eyes, until you have lived in their midst, even for the shortest while.

Before my visit to Guinea, I knew that global hunger and malnutrition was a problem. But the issue was only academic in my mind. When you’ve seen malnourished children with your own eyes and their disadvantaged start in life, a moral imperative compels you to act and becomes impossible to ignore.

In the west, we take our simplest privileges for granted. Many have said this before me; and many will say it after me. It’s still true. In the very poorest regions of West Africa you can forget about a nice shower or warm bath at the end of a long day. About flushing the loo, or even having a loo to flush. You can forget about turning on a tap. About dashing round to the shop to buy newspapers, a bar of chocolate and some washing powder. In Guinea, people walk 15 miles to the river to wash their clothes. Washing your clothes takes all morning. You don’t just ‘put a wash on’.

I am no saviour. I’m absolutely the last person on the planet who can practically help. I don’t know how to make the different types of therapeutic feeding milk. I’m no chemist. I’m no doctor. I’m no engineer. I can’t manufacture polio vaccines or organise their transportation to the health centres in Saramoussayah or Bissikirima. I can’t build schools, or design drainage systems. I can’t provide the women and children of Mandiana with water.

I’m just an actor. Interestingly, there’s no such thing as an ‘actor’ in Guinea. It simply doesn’t register as an occupation. I heard tell of the ‘griot’: the term used in West Africa to describe the storyteller, the poet, the bard. But at the schools I visited when I asked children what they wanted to be when they grew up the answers were “teacher”, “minister of education”, “plumber”, “electrician”, “carpenter”, “teacher”, “teacher” and “teacher”. Many even said they wanted to work for UNICEF.

The people who are really helping are those on the ground. They are heroic, and mostly if not entirely unsung. Julien Harneis, the resident representative of UNICEF in Guinea and our guide, is a man of extraordinary learning, experience, energy, curiosity and kindness. It’s his job to divide UNICEF’s financial and medical resources and to make sure those plans and policies get real results in the field. It’s his job to coordinate with the Guinean government and local authorities so that advances in both the humanitarian and developmental imperatives of the country rise in parallel. He is helped by Felix Ackebo, his deputy, by women like Michele Akan Badarou, his communications specialist, by Dr Pierre Andou, his nutrition specialist. It’s people like Idrissa Souaré, Chief of the East, and Mariame Kanka Labe Diallo, the directrice professionelle de santé of Saramoussayah, who made such a lasting impression on me. I’ll never forget her face as long as I live. These are the people who are doing the work, day in, day out. This work is not morose or maudlin. It is joyful.

Then there is Pauline Llorca and Louise O’Shea, indefatigable, inspirational and ceaselessly kind, and their team at UNICEF UK in London, who work so tirelessly and with such passion to promote, develop, and implement UNICEF’s policies and programmes all over the world. It is to them that I owe an eternal debt of gratitude. It is they who allowed me the privilege of visiting Guinea. They made it possible.

What I learned in Guinea is that we are all responsible for the state of our world. The world – and the system by which we trade, share, cooperate and conflict – is clearly not working. We are only as strong as our weakest members. UNICEF is run at every level by strong, relentlessly energetic, deeply capable people who use that strength, energy and capability to help those who need it most: the weakest, most disadvantaged women and children of our world. All I can do now is help make people aware of what is happening, of what they are doing. That is all that I can do. For now.

Did you know that this year, UNICEF UK is joining forces with over a hundred charities to campaign for a fairer food system as part of the IF Campaign?

We’re asking the UK Government to take action so that children don’t have to wake up hungry. Together, we can make 2013 the beginning of the end of world hunger. Have you signed up yet?