Every afternoon hundreds of scrawny children pile off battered old buses at l’Athlétique d’Haïti (Haiti Athletic) to play football or basketball, and to get a free meal and a safe place to do their homework.

However, the project, which has produced four national squad players and helped countless others to avoid being sucked into slum gangs, is being threatened by wealthy landowners who are reclaiming the land.

Mr Duval is one of a growing band of private entrepreneurs, Haitian and foreign, dedicated to improving living conditions in a country that has collapsed.

Whether working with Aids patients, orphans or slum children, they represent a beacon of hope. “This country’s survival is the story of individual efforts by people who feel compelled not to let their neighbours die,” Mr Duval, the son of well-to-do parents and the owner of a manufacturing company, said.

Unlike many in his social class, who have left the country or live in wealthy, secure enclaves high above the city, he is happiest in the slums helping the less fortunate.

A longtime political activist, considered a traitor to his class by some, Mr Duval was jailed in the late 1970s for criticising the dictatorship of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. He spent 17 months in Fort Dimanche, an infamous torture centre, where he watched 180 cellmates being beaten or starved to death. He left, barely alive, after President Carter, of the United States, intervened. When he emerged , Mr Duval weighed just 6st 6lb (40.8kg), less than half his normal weight.

He started the sports programme in part to encourage his young son to meet poor Haitians his age. “I didn’t want him growing up in ignorance like I did,” he said.

Mr Duval built the playing fields on a 15-acre borrowed area of land that used to be a dumping ground for a bottling company. Donations from wealthy friends pay for food, kit and balls. The violence is never far away, especially after an armed uprising in February ousted President Aristide, a former slum priest.

Like many Haitians, Mr Duval grew disillusioned with Mr Aristide’s populist rhetoric and lawless rule. Yet the future does not look any better.

“Even though Aristide’s gone, the problems are still there,” he said. The road that passes the complex is one of the most dangerous in Haiti, a regular scene of robberies and car-jackings. Recently a stray bullet killed a man tending cattle on the playing field.

Last week boys waiting for practice to start discussed a recent raid into Cité Soleil by United Nations peacekeepers. It was rumoured that Dread Wilmé, a notorious gangster, had been killed. “Every day there’s war out there,” Bonet Evens, 13, who lives in a tin shack with five brothers and sisters, said. “Haiti Athletic is our only hope.”

Within the walled complex, peace reigns, but for how long Mr Duval is not sure. A group of wealthy families who own the land want it back. Mr Duval has been offered another site, but it is only half the size and in an even worse location. Mr Duval says that moving will be costly and he wants his landlords to compensate him. “This was a dump before I cleaned it up,” he said, adding that he also built the clubhouse, including the changing rooms and a canteen.

“You’d think in the current conditions in Haiti, people would have more heart,” Karl Ferguson, a professional fundraiser from America working with Mr Duval, said. “This country needs more people like Bobby. Besides, if he gets kicked off, there are going to be a lot of irate kids around here.”

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