A hush falls over the children before 14-year-old Spaniard Araceli García Maldonado commands: "Up to the sky with her". Then they hoist the shrine of Christ, weighing more than one tonne, onto their shoulders.

The children in the village of Dalias are practising, like thousands across Spain, for Easter processions in which wood and metal shrines, topped with a statue of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, are carried from churches and through streets as a symbolic form of penance.

The Easter procession is hugely popular in nearby Seville and Cordoba, famous for hundreds of adherents wearing elaborate tunics and pointed hoods.

But in places like Dalias, the number of people volunteering for the back-breaking task is dwindling, reflecting falling Church attendance in this traditionally fervent Catholic nation and forcing locals to seek a novel solution.

The white-washed village, perched high in the dry hills above the southern Andalucian coast, is filling the gap with children and so passing on a centuries-old tradition.

"The first hoist of the shrine is an experience that you can never describe," says 15-year-old Maria Dolores Canton, who for five years has attended classes at the Brotherhood of Christ of the Good Death and Most Holy Mary of the Bitterness.

"The most important thing is to work every day so you get to Holy Thursday and everything goes well."

Helpers bind the 22 carriers, some as young as 12, in long strips of cloth to support their backs.

Then, as night falls in the town's main square, the 'costaleros' - as shrine bearers are known - begin the same lifting drills they have practised for months. Timing must be perfect or the weight of the shrine - heavier than a Mini Cooper car - would prove impossible for the all-child group.

Supporting its weight on wooden ribs under the belly of the shrine, the costaleros shuffle forward rhythmically rocking from one foot to the other under Araceli's direction.

Teamwork and trust is key because curtains around the edge of the shrine will shroud the bearers in hot, claustrophobic darkness for an ordeal lasting for more than two hours on Thursday.

Since it opened eight years ago almost 500 children have passed through the school, some as young as five. Although girls outnumber boys - another sign of change in traditional southern Spain - Maria says that matters little in the tight-knit group.

"Everyone is together. The most important thing is that it doesn't rain on Thursday so we can get out there."