Live Below the Line - Initial Plans!

A few years ago I was chatting to a few friends who worked on a challenge called ‘Live Below the Line’. This challenge calls you to live for 5 days on just £1 per day for food and drink. Recently, I’ve been thinking that I’d love to participate in this to really see what it will be like to live on a very small amount – something that over 1 billion around the world do every day. 5 days seems like an insignificant amount of time compared with those people for whom it is a daily struggle – and yet, a vast amount of time for someone who daily buys meals out and rarely considers the cost of food.

Poverty affects both the third world and first world countries – relative poverty is forecast to rise from 2.6 million in 2009/10 to 2.9 million in 2015/16 and 3.3 million by 2020/21 in the UK1. Absolute poverty is also expected to rise; however, there are many different charities that work to bring sustainable change to those communities that face poverty around the world – such as through the use of education to enable people to enhance skills and create jobs.

As an RE teacher, poverty is a topic that we are currently exploring with Year 8 – 12/13 year olds living in a relatively affluent area. Having begun studying this with this year group, I have decided that I will complete the ‘Live Below the Line’ task, updating my students on the challenge. I will share the difficulties in buying food, the food that I am eating and how it is affecting me on a daily basis. I hope that this will bring a realistic aspect to the topic, and really give young people an insight into how people really have to live.

My students are currently researching different charities that work with those in poverty, both in the UK and around the world. Through their research I will decide which charity I wish to raise funds for as part of this. I hope that you will consider sponsoring me, or offer insight into how I can best use this experience to enhance the understanding that my students have on poverty around the world. I will be completing this between the 18th and 22nd May 2015.

I’ll update you when a charity has been chosen!





1. 1. http://www.poverty.ac.uk/report-poverty-measurement-child-poverty-benefits-uk/child-and-adult-poverty-set-rise-2015

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