Mogadishu, Somalia - A country whose very name is almost enough of an introduction, Somalia's reputation of unfathomable violence and desperate poverty is known around the world. In decades of civil war, it has been described as a "failed state" - a lawless home to gangs of pirates and murderers who terrorise those too impoverished to flee to foreign lands.

But there is more, so much more, to this land and these people than tales of fear and terror. While no one in this country below the age of 30 has any memory of functioning state institutions - police, schools or garbage disposal - this is a nation that has never given up on the dream of peace and stability.