After spending a week celebrating our freedom and remembering our slavery it is time to turn our attention to a very real and current problem around the world. Next week is the kick off of a huge campaign to increase awareness and understanding of the 1.4 billion people living below the poverty line. “Live Below the Line” is a campaign run by the Global Poverty Project where they challenge all of us to live off “$1.50 of food and drink for one to five days” between the dates of April 28 to May 2.
It is a great opportunity for synagogues, youth groups, or just a group of friends to get together and take the challenge as a team and learn to empathize with the cause. The challenge will spark dialogue and raise money to help end extreme poverty by 2030, the goal of the Global Poverty Project.
Once you even start thinking about this challenge you will realize how hard it actually would be to live off of $1.50/day. Beans and rice are the mainstay for most people and say goodbye to olive oil and coffee. I spoke to one of the people involved who has taken the challenge for the past two years and she said she went hungry most nights. You can easily see how this initiative sparks change and I hope that some of you will take it on and let us know your experiences in the comments below.
For more information and to register for Live Below the Line, visit
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Very worthy endeavor. I hope that every year more and more people do this, if only to bring more attention, and hopefully political activism to combat hunger. Unfortunately, most of this is preaching to the choir. We can only hope that more people become choir members.