Djibouti is one of the world's smallest countries being around the size of Massachusetts and with a population of under 800,000. Sixty per cent of the country's population live in the capital city of Djibouti, the rest are mainly nomadic herdsmen, although this way of life is slowing dying out with regular droughts across the Horn of Africa forcing the Nomads to live in communities in order to access food aid.

Education is a major problem in Djibouti with under 30% of children attending school, much less for girls. Despite this literacy rates in the country are 78% for boys, however this drops to just over 58% for girls and girls are usually subjected to genital mutilations creating other sanitary dangers in addition to the trauma experienced.

There are also very few pre-school or infancy learning programs for children in Djibouti.  For every ten children who survive childbirth in the country one will have died before his or her first birthday, and a further one will have died before their fifth birthday. Infant mortality is increased by the local custom of feeding babies water with sugar rather than milk leading to diarrhoea and malnutrition.

Access to safe water is a major issue in Djibouti. Even in urban areas it runs at just over 50% whilst dropping alarmingly to around 21% in rural areas. Unemployment (running at over 60%) and poverty are rampant with nine out of every ten children in rural areas not even having a home to provide shelter. This video gives an insight into life in Djibouti.