• Evening Standard readers can dramatically improve the lives of thousands of African schoolchildren through our Christmas appeal
• Your money will provide textbooks, desks and new classrooms in impoverished villages where Aids has blighted thousands of families
• And the capital's pupils can forge unique links by twinning with schools in Africa
Twenty-two London schools are being twinned with their counterparts in Africa, in a scheme run by the charity for which Evening Standard readers raised £171,000. More than 1,000 pupils in the capital have exchanged letters, drawings and photographs with children in Kenya, Malawi and Sierra Leone.
UK pupils hear first hand stories about the realities of war from Sierra Leone partners
"The reactions from the girls in the room was complete silence when they heard those stories - they were shocked. I think it will affect them deeply, not in a negative way, but they will be affected by it."
A group of children is sitting in a semi-circle in the hall of Marlborough Primary in Chelsea when the subject of school dinners comes up.
Nine-year-old Hussein leaps up and says: "On Fridays we get fish-fingers and chips, but the rest of the week they give us disgusting things, like cauliflower and carrots!" The other children vigorously add complaints of their own.
Felix Ouma, head of Opande Primary School, Kenya
Plan UK has been working with National Museums Liverpool and Aduna to connect schools
along the former triangular slave trade route. Pupils from Brazil,
England, Haiti, Senegal and Sierra Leone are working together using the
web to explore three questions:
"There is a growing evidence base to suggest that attendance, attainment and behaviour improves if students have a real say in matters which affect them."
These words were spoken by Lord Andrew Adonis, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Schools and Learners at the launch event for two significant pieces of research on schools councils.
A Year 9 class in London learn about water management after watching a film about a family from a small village in Kenya.
