THE charity Unicef, which is appealing for help from the people of Swindon to improve conditions in Iraq, today revealed a £2 donation could provide enough food to sustain a child for a week.

Unicef - the United Nations Children Fund - is in Iraq, supplying urgently needed food, medicine and educational supplies.

Chris Wynn, regional fundraising manager for Unicef South West, said: "Every penny counts, but there is so much work to be done. We need to raise £90 million."

Unicef, which has some 200 staff in the country, is resuming its school health programme in northern Iraq and will be monitoring children to ensure that their health needs are being met.

In Umm Qasr, on the Kuwaiti border, Unicef workers have started screening children for malnutrition.

Chris said: "The situation was desperate before the war so the problems are even more severe now. The war may be over but the battle of giving Iraq's children a decent chance in life has just begun."

To help, please send your donation - no matter how big or small - with the form at the bottom of this page to Evening Advertiser/ UNICEF Iraq Children's Appeal, FREEPOST, Chelmsford, CM2 8BR.

What your money will buy

4p will buy one Vitamin A capsule

£2 could provide two boxes of high-energy biscuits a week's supply for a malnourished child

£25 could provide enough therapeutic feeding for 350 children

£32 could buy enough high energy biscuits to feed 15 children for one month

£1,111 could provide enough high-energy food to bring 30 malnourished orphans back to health in six weeks

£50 could buy one basic family water kit

£75 is enough to buy water purification tablets to give 800 children a litre of clean water to drink

£175 could buy and install a water pump that will provide water to 250 people per day

£1,200 could buy a portable testing lab to ensure that rural water supplies are safe for drinking

71p could buy 33 pencils for a class of pupils

£215 will buy a school-in-the-box kit for 80 students with 36 components, including bags, writing equipment, paint, exercise books and slates