Toybox for Guatemalan streetchildren: (Duncan and Jenni Dyason work with the streetchildren of Guatemala).

Sitting in leafy Buckingham-shire on the edge of London's commuter belt, watching BBC television on a Sunday evening, is not many people's idea of a trigger for a life of commitment to disadvantaged children on the other side of the world. Yet, that is what happened to Duncan and Jenni Dyason.

Duncan had a difficult, deprived childhood, which included burglary and rejection by his family. Thanks to a questioning mind, mixed with a street-wise sense of humour, he found jobs, digs, God and a wife, Jenni--an Australian who shares his deep faith.

It is nine years since Duncan and Jenni watched a documentary called They Shoot Children, Don't They? about the streetchildren of Guatemala. At the time Duncan was working as full-time youth worker at St Leonard's Church in Chesham Bois near Amersham. This programme led them to give up job and home comforts to decamp with their newborn daughter, Katelyn, to Guatemala City.

First, however, they raised funds for the streetchildren among their youth groups, and the support they received became the springboard for the formation of Toybox, a national registered charity.

In a book he has written about those early days in Guatemala City, Miracle Children: The Toybox Story, Duncan says, `It was a challenging time for us as we witnessed a reality we'd rather not have known.' They saw children sniffing glue, an eight-year-old trying to rob a passerby at knife point, young girls involved in prostitution, police who harassed and even shot streetchildren, and whole families living in tin shacks on the edge of the city's mountainous rubbish tip.

The Dyasons raised the first [pounds sterling] 15,000 needed to move to Guatemala in just five months. For the next two and a half years they lived and worked in the country, with varying degrees of success and disappointment. They became convinced that there was little point in outsiders paying flying visits and disappearing as quickly as they had arrived. The streetchildren needed love with a solid foundation, and that meant the work in Guatemala being led by nationals.

Today, there is a Guatemalan director, staff and trustees, mirroring Toybox's set-up in the UK. Four homes, two for each sex, have been built and the streetchildren, after first going through a `reception' stage, move into the homes, from where they receive regular education. There's also a `high risk' team, working with parents and children who seem most likely to take to the streets if they do not receive help. The charity has learned to work with rather than against the Guatemalan government, which has recently changed to more democratic policies and has started training its police in more humane methods.

There is a five-year plan to build more homes--two this year if funds permit--and to rescue more children. British students have been inspired to spend their gap years working with Toybox both in Guatemala and the UK. Despair as Duncan sometimes does about the reaction of the churches, in both Britain and Guatemala, there is little doubt the Dyasons have made a difference and inspired others to try to do likewise.