Modern missionaries from St Ambrose College in Cheshire have returned from a 10-day trip to poverty stricken Sierra Leone as changed men.

The 12 sixth-form students and six staff from the Hale Barns Catholic grammar school, founded by the Christian Brothers, went to the war-torn west African state to discover what life is really like for a people still emerging from a gruesome bloodbath. Their photographs reveal a triumph of the human spirit under appalling conditions.

Matthew McAuliffe, 17, from Altrincham, said: “Seeing the children’s smiles amidst such sheer desolation was a life-changing experience.” The party first flew into the capital Freetown to visit the bay-side slums, a sprawling shanty town built on the city’s rubbish dumps, extending further into the sea as new land is created from piles of rotting landfill.