It would be hard to find a child with a sweeter smile than the aptly named Karmeh Bonny. The five-year-old lives with her grandmother, Marie, in a neat corner of Kingsville, a village in rural Liberia.

Karmeh is poor but seems perfectly happy. Marie says she is always running about. Karmeh has lots of friends and, now that education is free in Liberia, the prospect of a place at school.

But Marie is dreading the day when Karmeh realises there is something odd about her family. At that point, she will have to tell the child that her mother, Mamie — Marie’s youngest daughter — died the day after she was born.

“She thinks one of my other daughters is her mother,” says Marie. “We did not tell her what happened because we did not want her to carry that sadness. But sooner or later, she will have to know the truth.”

Mamie died in 2003, aged 16. As a child, she was like Karmeh: happy and active. When she got pregnant by a local boy her mother did not approve, but accepted it as a fact of life — there is no contraception available locally and having a baby while a teenager is common in west Africa.

However, Liberia is one of the most dangerous places on earth to be born or to have a baby. One in nine children does not make it to his or her fifth birthday and Mamie was to become part of another horrifying statistic: one in 12 women who dies in childbirth.

With your support, The Sunday Times Christmas appeal aims to change the prospects for mothers and babies in Kingsville.

Save the Children, the British charity, supports a clinic and school in the village and we want to help its team upgrade the clinic — which serves 20,000 people — supply

it with medicines and train local midwives.

We also aim to rebuild Kingsville’s decrepit school and give children like Karmeh pens, pencils and books.

She is far from the only one without a mother — many of the children at the school have lost parents through illness or war.

Women giving birth in Kingsville die of simple things: blood loss or fever that sets in because they have torn during labour and there is no clean water to wash with, nobody to stitch their wounds and no antibiotics to fight the infection.

“Neonatal sepsis is the big killer,” says Dr Hari Banskota, director of Save the Children’s medical programme in Liberia. “Simple hygiene and basic equipment could save lives.”

The death of Karmeh’s mother is unexplained. “The baby was born and we all rejoiced,” says Marie.

“Everything was fine and I went to visit my sister for a few hours.

“When I came back, Mamie was weak and obviously ill. All night we tried to help her, but there was no doctor here. In the morning we tried to get her to hospital, but she died on the highway.”

If every person who bought The Sunday Times gave just £1, we could make a dramatic difference to life in Kingsville: £25 would kit out a midwife with all she needs to ensure a safe delivery, including medical equipment, a plastic sheet, soap and lantern; £30 would pay for a “baby box” filled with essentials for a newborn, including nappies, clothes, a blanket, socks and a hat.

We would also like to install pumps to bring clean water to the village and stop children dying of stomach upsets and diarrhoea. We want to boost Save the Children’s vaccination programme, which has been hampered by a lack of electricity in rural areas.

Vaccines need to be kept cool and the village’s ancient kerosene-powered fridge is not working. If we could put in solar panels and a new fridge, the clinic could vaccinate more babies and would have light for night-time emergencies.

Davina McCall, the television presenter, has made a number of films for our appeal website. She visited the clinic, saw babies being vaccinated and watched Kaytor Kowo, the head midwife, training neighbourhood midwives.

“I was invited into a hut to watch a couple of examinations. The local midwife told me she didn’t have any tools, so I asked how she listened to the foetal heartbeat. She leant over and put her head on the woman’s stomach,” she says.

Save the Children is training village midwives to spot problems such as iron deficiency and preeclampsia, which can be devastating if not treated.

Our website allows you to “visit” Kingsville, with McCall acting as your guide. This week Junior, whose wife died in childbirth, will tell his story. You can also meet Kowo, the midwife, who has delivered more than 300 babies in Kingsville.

Charles Dennis, the headmaster, will take you on a tour of the local school. It has more than 400 pupils, but no desks or books.

Your donation could have a huge impact on Kingsville.

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