FOX 12 recently traveled with some Portland area volunteers to perhaps the most poverty-stricken location in the western hemisphere – Managua, Nicaragua. It's a place where the incredible despair is only outweighed by the stories of hope.

For 40 years, La Chureca, otherwise known as the Managua dump, has been called home for thousands.

There, vultures, cattle and children scrounge through the daily garbage deliveries for the same scraps of rotten food. Others sift out the recyclables and sell them to survive.

Outsiders are not readily welcomed to the area, but FOX 12 was invited to join Portland-area volunteers from Southlake Church on a trip inside the dump.

Andrew Block is one of the volunteers experiencing the horrors for the first time.

"It is an assault on your senses, what you hear, what you smell. It's so thick you can almost taste it," said Block.

But the destination on this day gives Block and the others hope. A fully functioning school is an unlikely oasis inside the dump itself.

"And then, all of the sudden, you pull into that school and it's like time just stops. You hear kids singing in unison, screaming and playing," said Block.

The school provides perhaps the one chance kids have to escape – an education. It also represents the vision of Gloria Sequiera, a Nicaraguan woman who has dedicated her life to the children.

"Our dream is to have all of the kids out of the dump. I mean, out of the working area of the dump. So far, we have 350 kids out of that area of work. So for us, that is an achievement," said Sequiera. "It's a dream to have them prepare, teach them to learn how to read and write and how to be something else."

Gloria has earned the trust of the La Chureca families and the trust of the Vancouver organization, Forward Edge International, who oversees the volunteers.

Josephina, a teacher at the school, described the horrific choice the young girls face.

"Most of the girls, when they turn 11, most of them go and find a man. When a girl doesn't find a man, they go and start selling their bodies to the truck drivers, sometimes just so they can look through their trash trucks first. Some start prostitution at 9 years old," said Josephina.

But Sequiera also showed us the hope that permeates the area. From the prideful woman sweeping her dirt floor to the evidence of faith protruding into a sky full of vultures, the powerful messages are not lost on the Portland visitors, who are all most affected by those who are the most innocent.

For Block and the other volunteers, their mission is just beginning.

Tuesday on "The 10 O'Clock News," FOX 12 will go along as the Portland volunteers begin construction on an entire village for the dump children.

Want to make a donation or help the children? Visit www.southlakechurch.com or www.forwardedge.org.

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