It started with a makeshift puppet called Seamus. Now the Newcastle-based charity No Strings is bringing smiles to thousands of vulnerable children across the world - with support from actors Hugo Speer and Neil Morrissey. Lindsay Jennings reports.

THE kids from Southwick Primary School, in Sunderland, are sitting cross-legged in their royal blue jumpers, waiting patiently for the show to begin.

The lights go down. Any chattering ebbs away as the music unfolds - a mesmerising, Eastern sound which draws their attention. There's not a peep out of any of them.

They sit transfixed by the story of a little boy and his grandmother, told with a mixture of humour and drama by the headman and his puppet camel. But this is no ordinary puppet show. The pupils are unwittingly soaking up a life-saving message about safety around landmines and UXO (unexploded ordnance) bombs in former war-torn countries.

The video, which has been created by the Newcastle-based No Strings charity, is having its world premiere at Southwick Primary. But it will be seen by thousands of children across the world in places where the message is needed most.

It is estimated that 800 people are killed and 1,200 people are maimed a month by landmines across the world. There are 110 million landmines in the ground in every continent and it would cost £33bn to remove them all if no more were planted.

No Strings was set up by aid worker Johnie McGlade two years ago with the aim of getting across information on landmine awareness, HIV and AIDS through puppetry. Johnie, 41, and originally from Donegal in Ireland, had been working as an aid worker for the Irish organisation Goal and later War Child since 1992. He saw the effects puppets had on children in the third world when he took 'Seamus' along to the emergency feeding centres.

"There was an instant calming effect and they would talk to Seamus as if he was real," he recalls. "His power was extraordinary. He would bring smiles to the faces of children who had been through war and terror, bridge language gaps and break down barriers within a matter of seconds."

Johnie later learned that New York-based puppeteers Kathy Mullen and Michael Frith - who had played principle roles in creating the Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street - were looking for a way to help the Afghan people following the September 11 attacks.

The three saw how puppet theatre could be used to educate and entertain and No Strings was born. But instead of simply putting on a show for children in former war torn countries, they had the idea of training local people - teachers and health workers - to run the shows and create puppets, so the message could be spread even further.

The aim is to spare more children from being injured or killed, children like nine-year-old Fernando Moises. Fernando was looking for firewood when he stepped on an antipersonnel landmine near Kuito, Angola. His left leg was blown off and he lay in his own blood for two hours until he was rescued.

There are similar horror stories across the world. Adis Smajic, 13, entered some ruins left over from the Bosnian conflict in Sarajevo. He spotted a landmine and knew it was dangerous so he tried to move it to one side. It went off, costing him his left eye, his hand and deep scarring to his face.

The video shown to the Southwick children - ChucheQhalin - The Adventures of the Little Carpet Boy - will reach thousands of youngsters in Afghanistan, where it will be translated into the local languages Dari and Pastu. Afghanistan has suffered more than two decades of conflict and is one of the most severely mined and UXO-affected countries in the world. There are an estimated ten million landmines in the country which could take 25 years to clear.

In the 45 minute video, ChucheQhalin is led through minefields by evil figures taken from Afghan folklore with only Jaladul the camel to guide him. He is warned against going into ruined buildings with intact windows and doors; to avoid overgrown paths and not to pick up plastic or metal objects.

"We get it into more places as a video and also security wise it's much easier to get about without putting people into jeopardy. You can do all the urban areas without a hitch," says Johnie, who lives in Gosforth, near Newcastle. "It gets across a message which will last a lifetime but in a fun way."

Johnie speaks passionately in his quick-fire Irish brogue, gesticulating with his hands and drawing his audience in. It is easy to see how his enthusiasm and boundless energy for the project helped attract Men Behaving Badly actor Neil Morrissey and Harrogate-born Full Monty star Hugo Speer to the charity.

Neil and Hugo have done more than simply lend their celebrity names. They have been to several countries from Uganda to Kosovo on field trips. Hugo is a patron of No Strings while Neil is chairman of trustees.

"They're brilliant, they're buddies," shrugs Johnie. "They love the idea of No Strings, that there's a theatrical side to it and they've seen first hand the reaction of the kids."

Johnie also spent a month in Sri Lanka post tsunami, initially as an aid worker with Goal. But the charity is creating another video to help deal with the trauma of what has happened, and to raise awareness about some of the health issues.

"They're massively traumatised. Every time the water is choppy the people run away because they're terrified it's going to happen again," he says. "We'll train local psychologists in how to use puppets. The emphasis will be very much on training and setting up workshops so the local trainees become the trainers. We try to make it as far removed from Western influence as possible".

After the landmine campaign, the next project will be helping to raise awareness about AIDS and HIV in Africa. According to the World Health Organisation, 550,000 children under the age of 15 in sub-Saharan Africa died from AIDS/HIV during 2002 compared with 100 in Western Europe.

Johnie admits the fund raising side is difficult, particularly when he wants to get back out into the field, but has had a great deal of help from communities in the North-East. There is also an anthology of short stories, entitled Ladies' Night (HarperCollins, £6.99) which has been recently published and is raising money for War Child and No Strings.

Southwick Primary's headteacher Trisha Stoker is certainly impressed by the video the children have finished watching. The team from No Strings has been into the school several times with the puppets and she has seen the way the children react to them.

"When Kathy was here the kids were standing there talking directly to the puppets and one girl finally said 'who's that?' to Kathy," she says.

Nor does she think the children are too young to get the messages in the film.

"People sell children short," she says. "They don't expect them to understand but unless you start to explain real life issues at a very young age, they'll never understand."

As if to emphasise her point, the children have filed out from the hall and are chatting animatedly about what they have seen. They may not have to face landmines on a daily basis, but they have learned that other children their ages face great perils getting to school and out playing.

Perhaps without realising it, Johnie and his team are also encouraging a new generation of little fund raisers as one boy, aged about seven, proves.

"What are we going to do about it?" he says to his friend.