Pamela met pain and loss very early. Her father was killed by unknown assailants. When she was three, her mother could not cope and left her. Her older sister now looks after her, against enormous odds: finding food, paying the rent, trying to keep her safe. They had to move out of the house where they had lived with their mother, because that housing had been provided by a disability support association.

A lively, energetic boy who has been through a great deal. He lost his mother the moment he was born — she died in childbirth. Who his father is, nobody knows. When he was born the doctors gave him a name meaning "Almighty God". Everyone around him assumed he would not survive. He did. He has never known a parent's love, and there are no relatives to support him; almost nothing is known about his family. That leaves him extremely vulnerable. He needs help and warmth to grow up and develop like other children.

Noëlla lives with her mother, who is not in a position to look after her, so the girl has to find food herself. She spends hours alone on the street looking for something for the two of them to eat. Her father lives with another woman and gives them no help at all.

His mother is seriously ill and is in hospital roughly every other day. His father lives apart from them, in his own village, and gives no help. So the boy has to look after himself. He goes to the neighbours to ask for food, or looks for it on the streets. He wears cast-offs: his T-shirt hangs in rags, full of holes and loose threads. Edmond has no other clothes.

His father left when he was six months old. His mother has not been part of his life for the past four years. Ezechiel now lives with his grandmother, but things are hard for her too: she is seriously ill and rarely leaves the house. They are desperately short of money, and the boy tries to find food himself.

Caël has no parents. His grandmother looks after him sometimes, but most of the responsibility falls on his older sister, who is only seventeen. It came to this after their parents were killed in a bomb blast. His sister lives without hope of anything better, and the boy is still too young to understand what is happening to her or around him.

Benny has a mother; who his father is, nobody knows. Finding something to eat is a struggle for him every single day. Every piece of clothing he wears came through the Apostolic church. His life is so hard that hope is going out of him.

Kenny has both a mother and a father. His father has a physical disability and his mother begs from passers-by. Her situation puts the boy at risk. The family is crowded into a single small room, and Kenny sleeps on the same mat as his parents.

Nicia lives with her mother in a single small room, where unknown men come and go. The girl is in urgent need of protection. Most of the time it is the neighbours who keep an eye on her.

Kevin has both parents, but the family is very poor and has no access to healthcare. When he falls ill, his parents cannot always find the money for a hospital, for medicine, or even for the journey there. Illnesses that are normally treated without difficulty — malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia — become life-threatening for him. This family has already lost children: Kevin's two elder brothers died simply because there was no money to save them.

Ruhana lives in constant instability: her parents move from place to place, each time because they have no choice — economic crises, a changing climate, armed conflict. Family life falls apart under that strain. In these conditions Ruhana loses any safe space around her, is often left alone, and goes without the simplest necessities.

Kevine is highly vulnerable because of poverty and unemployment in her family. Prices rise, there is no money, and her parents simply cannot feed her properly, care for her, still less educate her. Sometimes, to get through, she is sent out to beg or to work in the fields or on the street.