Next week, people around the world will unite in taking the Live Below the Line challenge—experiencing for 5 days what more than a billion people experience every single day without choice: trying to meet one’s nutritional needs on $1.50 USD/day ($1.75 CAD/£1 GBP) .
FeelGood, a youth movement leveraging the power of a grilled cheese to end global poverty— has multiple teams participating in the LBL challenge raising money for The Hunger Project. Here are five strategies for getting the most out of the experience, curated by our Columbia University chapter:
1. Come together and share
Live Below the Line creates a great opportunity to experience the power of community. Pool your resources with others to shop, cook and share recipes—all of which can make your money go further. And don’t forget the most important part of community: cheering each other on!
2. Be open to the experience
As the week unfolds, be open to the thoughts, feelings, physical reactions, questions, and tensions that arise. What do you notice about the monetary restriction and how it affects you? What do you notice about your spending habits outside of this week? This is a unique opportunity to deeply reflect on the challenges faced by more than a billion of our brothers and sisters, and how we can all actively be a part in changing that reality.
3. Talk about your experience
Being open to the experience makes it easy and natural to engage others in conversation, which, in addition to spreading awareness, can help deepen the impact on your own life even more. Talk with your teammates, friends, family, colleagues and classmates about what you’re experiencing and learning. Perhaps you can use it as an opportunity to talk about food insecurity and poverty in your own neighborhood and community, or about your assumptions about global and local poverty, and how those assumptions have changed.
4. Talk about your experience — with respect
As you engage and invite others to talk about the challenge you've undertaken, pay attention to how you communicate — especially online. Be respectful and sensitive. You don’t want to come across as trivializing hunger or treating it as just a game or fun challenge. Hunger and poverty are serious issues. Act—and speak—accordingly.
5. Fundraise for good!
Taking everything above into account, challenge yourself to take the next step and lovingly invite others to invest in our fellow human beings and in the end of extreme poverty. Create the opportunity for people to align their resources with their values and passion, and contribute to sustainable, impactful change.
And finally, as you start the Live Below the Line challenge next week, remember: we’re all in this together. Good luck!