Most people reading this will be glad to consign 2020 to the “deleted items” box, or, for those of you who now live by Zoom, to push the “leave meeting” icon on this year. But there has been one silver lining: a heightened appreciation of the problems caused by depression, stress and trauma. People across […]

Ever since the novels Vanity Fair (1847) and Jane Eyre (1848), the orphan has been a standard fixture in literature. From Oliver Twist to Harry Potter, via Tom Sawyer and David Copperfield, readers have followed the difficult lives of vulnerable young people as they are forced to make their way in the world. Over the […]

Covid-19 is a new experience for most of us, but for Sierra Leone, it is a recurring nightmare. First, the small West African nation endured a long, vicious, devastating civil war, in which rebels amputated people’s hands as punishment. Then in 2014 came Ebola. Now, it is Covid-19. It’s hard to get a clear picture […]