For six months now, I’ve been asking myself and others, what will end the cycle of war in east Democratic Republic of Congo? As I prepare to leave, I think I may have found the answer – education.

This is not just a big battle between soldiers and rebels. It’s violence and fear, day in, day out, experienced by the most vulnerable.

Five-year-old Deux-Anges' emergency malaria treatment cost her family a full month's income, writes aid worker Anna Ridout.

The bottom line, which should be making headlines, is there is no peace in east Democratic Republic of Congo.

In an area where gathering wood is a dangerous task, World Vision is helping to introduce fuel-efficient stoves, which lessen the frequency with which women must make the trek into the forest.

In Congo, the fighting may have stopped, but families have lost everything – their crops, cattle and possessions. Teachers lead classes without pay and schools have been destroyed by soldiers. School furniture has even been cut up and used as firewood.

"It has been said many times that eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is the worst place in the world to be a woman," blogs World Vision aid worker Anna Ridout.

Clarisse is 11 years old and she sells herself to men for sex for less than a dollar. A group formed by local youth is working to help children like Clarisse.

World Vision is now covering the costs at a medical centre where residents previously had trouble affording treatment for their children.

From a distance, it’s easy to get very principled about the actions of armed groups. Here on the ground, you realise you have to balance that with a good measure of pragmatism.

This week was Esther’s* birthday. She turned 16 at a displacement camp in east DRC. Her mind has been less on birthday celebrations than on the baby she is expecting in a few weeks time. She is pregnant after being raped by armed militiamen last year.

“I’d like to go home,” Kakule tells me. “I hear my brothers are alive and are soon to return home. I haven’t seen my family for two years and I am lonely.”

The conflict in eastern DRC looks nothing like it did this time last week. I was at the hotel in Goma when the breakaway leaders of the main Tutsi rebel group came to announce the end of the war.

"Every parent I talk to here in eastern Congo is struggling to feed their families."

World Vision interviewed child and adult residents of the Mugunga camp, which is near Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, about their Christmas this year.

"Working in eastern Congo, where hundreds of thousands of people are planning a Christmas in temporary shelters far from home, makes the upcoming celebration hard to get my head around as I go back to the United Kingdom to be with my family for the holidays," writes aid worker Anna Ridout.

Newly displaced and desperate people arrive every day at Mugunga camp on the outskirts of Goma. Established nearly 10 years ago, at the beginning of Congo’s chronic conflict, the camp of over 10,000 people has received a daily influx of newly displaced persons since the outbreak of renewed heavy fighting in nearby areas.

International humanitarian organisation World Vision will present new findings to the United Nations Security Council today on the sexual violence against women and girls that has characterized the brutal conflict in eastern Congo.

There is a devastating epidemic of rape of young girls and women in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. While recent news reports focus on military conflict within the country, sexual assaults of women and children fleeing the fighting goes largely unreported.