The girl wears a battered, grey shirt, her head tucked in the crook of her elbow, but the look in her eyes removes her from the otherwise harsh reality of the shot.
Artist Katey Oven from Geldeston knew exactly what she was doing - and is planning to use the emotive painting to raise money for a leading UK children's charity.
The 17-year-old spent months painting the portrait, which she ended up including in her A-level portfolio at Bungay High sixth form this year - not for a grade, but to raise money for Street Child.
'I chose the image that I painted as a young girl from Sierra Leone. She's staring innocently at the camera and there's a realisation of the depth of hardships a child of her age has to go through in her own country as opposed to ours,' she said.
Last summer Katey volunteered through the National Citizen Service and first found out about Street Child and their work with vulnerable children in Africa.
This year the charity launched an appeal called 'Girls Speak Out,' which raised enough money to send 20,000 children back to school in West Africa after Ebola crippled the area.
'Watching the Street Child videos I found myself overcome with emotion, they made me cry. This was an outcome of the disease that I had never considered: people who were left behind when the majority of coverage and media had left,' Katey said.
'I felt these issues were really important to me and I wanted to do more than the cake sale my group had organised.'
Katey is putting her painting up for auction online, with bidding starting at £100.
She's hoping to raise as much money as possible for Street Child until the auction ends this Sunday, October 16.
Jo Cooke, a spokesman for Streetchild said: 'The amazing efforts of supporters like Katey means that Street Child will be able to support vulnerable girls to go to school and receive a quality education in post-Ebola West Africa. We are hugely grateful to Katey and hope the auction is a great success.'
To bid on Katey's painting, visit http://www.jumblebee.co.uk/katey-oven.
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