STUDENTS at a York school are hoping to link up with other campaigners across the world by helping to make a huge paper doll chain.

Pupils aged 11 to 14 at All Saints' RC School have been making the chain as part of the international campaign to cancel Third World debt.

Groups around the world hope to make the chain the biggest in the world and to present it to the G8 leaders at their Japan summit in July. All Saints' pupils have been working on hundreds of dolls to do their bit.

RE teacher Anne Tracy said doll-making had been going on in form lessons and RE lessons and she would be taking the finished work up to Durham in preparation for its journey to Japan.

She said: "The effect of Third World debt is that people can't build schools and houses and hospitals because they can't pay them off and it is creating enormous poverty.

"The pupils have been extremely responsive to the campaign and we've been involved for two or three years."

PICTURE - CUT IT OUT: All Saints' pupils making paper chains to highlight Third World poverty are, from left, Ruairi Giles, 13, Nicola Holmes, 14, Rachel Brough, 14, and Daniel Buckle, 13 Picture: Paul Baker