Many people's perceptions about life in Madagascar will have been formed either through visiting it as a tourist destination, through the Madagascar film franchise or by documentaries exploring its unique wildlife and landscape. The reality is, however, often very different as this video documentary about daily life in Madagascar explains.

Chronic political instability has seen organisations like the EU suspending humanitarian aid to one of the world's poorest countries, a country where children are being pulled out of schools, factories are closing, hospitals are struggling and running out of supplies with over half the country's children suffering from malnourishment. The current crisis had also led to an increase in the numbers of street children in places like the Madagascan capital of Antananarivo, already home to thousands of children begging on the streets.

Throw into this the fact that the country is regularly battered by cyclones and storms that cause widespread damage to the country's already brittle infrastructure and you can see just how harsh life is in Madagascar.