The future is bleak for the children living in poverty by a Filippino rubbish dump. Now, thanks to a group of Hampshire students, they have a safe place to regain part of their childhood.

Clare Kennedy reports. IN the shadow of the Smokey Mountain landfill dump children peer through the gates as a collection of colourful pieces of play equipment are put together.

They have never seen anything like it before - after all they are left to scrape a living in one of the world's worst slums in the Philippines.

Children living in Tondo, one of Manila's poorest and most densely populated districts, live in shacks, have few clothes and next to no possessions.

There are no places where they can safely play on the foul-smelling dump site among the clinical waste and piles of rotting carcasses that is their home.

They have never had any experience of what it feels like to be pushed down a slide, become dizzy on a roundabout or ride a rocking horse - until now.

"When we opened the gates to the playground it was like opening the floodgates,"

said teacher Dave Berry, who led nine students from Grove Park Business and Enterprise College in Southampton and eight ex-students now at Itchen College half way around the world to build a playground for under-privileged children.

"The children had no idea how to play at first. They had no concept of a playground because they had never seen anything like it before as they live on a dumpsite."

The group, including four other members of staff teamed up with the Hedge End-based Philippine Community Fund on the project.

They worked solidly for eight consecutive days to complete the adventure playground by the local school in Tondo - a half-hour commute through the narrow, fume-filled streets of Manila.

Every lunchtime they sat with the school children, eating the local food and making new friends.

The group also helped to build a new toilet block for the community in another of Manila's poorest districts of Navotas.

It was only on their last two days - when all their work was complete - that the boys who stayed in a modest hostel could take a welldeserved rest.

Their success was the culmination of months of painstaking planning, ambitious fundraising and sheer hard work.

It was while the Itchen College students were pupils at Grove Park that they came up with the idea of tackling another challenge after completing a canoeing and mountaineering expedition to Scotland.

Year 10 students at Grove Park were invited to apply to take part in the trip and after a rigorous interview process successful applicants were offered a place on the team.

Each member of the team raised £500 in sponsorship to fund the trip and on top of that £11,000 was raised to cover other expenses with businesses, schools, and churches lending their support.

Staff, students and parents at Sholing Junior School, whose deputy head teacher Richard Hutchinson joined the trip, also worked tirelessly to collect toys, clothing, football boots and 300 pairs of wellington boots for the project. In addition, Sports Mania in Bitterne provided more than £600-worth of football kit that Mr Hutchinson described making the young children in Manila feel like "superstars."

Before departing on their trip of a lifetime the team had shipped playground equipment donated by Playdale of Cumbria and Hand Made Places of Petersfield to the Philippines by container.

Building materials including 600 sheets of plasterboard donated by Corinthian Homes of Fareham and Elliotts the builders' merchants and toilets for the community project were also included.

However, the project did not get off to a smooth start after the group learnt customs had impounded their container in Manila.

To make matters worse, the original site for the playground could not be used as the new school being built out of 78 shipping containers near the Smokey Mountain dumpsite was behind schedule.

However the quick-thinking team turned their attention to preparing and painting an alternative site on wasteland outside the Philippine Community Fund's Tondo School, an old warehouse that caters for around 400 primary aged children.

Luckily the container arrived and within a few days their task of building the playground was complete.

Jane Walker, founder of the Philippine Community Fund said the boys had given the children a piece of their childhood that was missing - the joy of play and fun.

"The children needed a place to play so badly and I suspect the playground will be one reason why children will look forward to school even more.

"That in itself is a huge achievement but the legacy that has been left behind is that for a few hours a day children can forget the worry of their parents - how will they eat? How will they survive?"

As well as being a life-changing project for the children in the Philippines, it also turned out to be life-changing for those taking part.

Mr Berry said: "Parents of all the boys have all said they have come back in a more reflective mood, more aware and more tolerant."

Grove Park's head teacher Eric Freeman paid tribute to everyone involved in the ambitious project that turned out to be such a success.

"To see the pupils develop throughout the fundraising, awareness raising and then the project itself has been inspiring.

"Meeting and speaking to the boys after their return I could see that the visit had made a remarkable impact on them.

"Their physical and mental achievements are an inspiration to us all. For our young people to have worked for and supported some of the most vulnerable young people on the planet is very special.

"The construction of the playground and the look of sheer pleasure on the faces of the children as they saw it for the first time was awe inspiring.

"We are all extremely proud of what we achieved as a school and what these 17 young men and staff who supported them achieved as individuals."