LIFE-SAVING equipment is to be shipped out from Hampshire to desperate refugees sheltering in the makeshift camps of Darfur in the Sudan.

Members of the Rotary clubs of Chandler's Ford and Itchen Valley together with Southampton Clausentium have answered the global appeal to help the starving and homeless escaping the terrors of the Sudanese civil war by planning to dispatch urgently needed aid to Africa.

The "Shelterbox" costs less than £500 to make and could mean the difference between life and death to those taking cover in the camps of Sudan after fleeing the attacks by the Janjawid militia.

Money to buy the box - containing temporary accommodation for ten people, tools, heat and light as well as a water purification system - is being raised by staging the Modelworld 2004 exhibition.

This year's event is being held on Sunday at the Mountbatten School in Whitenap Lane, Romsey, with a free park-and-ride scheme operating from the Abbey Park Industrial Estate.

The Shelterbox, originally the idea of a Rotary Club in Cornwall, is a unique piece of equipment that has so far been sent to many trouble-spots and disasters around the world.

Nick Campbell-White, one of the Rotary club members helping to organise the exhibition, said: "Our contribution to Africa may seem small, but when the world-wide family of thousands of other clubs do the same, we have an effect.''

Contents of the Shelterbox are placed in a tough plastic 185-litre delivery container which can later be used as a water-tank, food store, table or even a cot.

Modelworld 2004 runs from 10am to 5pm.

BOXES CONTAIN:

One, three compartment, ten person domed tent.

Ten sleeping bags/ blankets.

Two packs of 180 water purification tablets and one 20 litre water container - enough to keep ten people in clean drinking water for up to three months.

Plastic water carriers.

A trenching shovel.

Two sets of basic cooking utensils and large pot.

Torches and batteries.

Fifty metres of rope.

Ten PVC ponchos.

One lock knife

Ten heavy duty, plastic waterproof sacks.