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| Hollie and Dayna prepare for austere times |
Students to live on $2.25 a day in poverty challenge
As students prepare to live on $2.25 a day for a poverty challenge, some social agencies say poverty is a growing reality for some Southlanders.Aparima College students from years 7-13 start the challenge on Monday to raise awareness for extreme poverty.Student organiser Holly Guyton said the challenge was important because students needed to understand how other people lived in the world.
"For some people that's their whole life and if they're really hungry they can't just ask their mum for food, because they have no food," she said.Southland Food Bank Charitable Trust chairman Peter Swain said the number of people living below the poverty line in Southland had increased by 20 to 30 per cent in the past six months.
This was because of seasonal work in the south and review of jobs at Inland Revenue.
Once the seasonal workers got behind, they struggled to get back on top of things, Mr Swain said.
"There is a percentage in Southland that is struggling and, unfortunately, some will always struggle," he said.
The challenge the Aparima College students were undertaking would highlight the poverty situation, and be an eye-opener for the students, he said.
The students plan to pool their money to buy the cheapest food from the Riverton's South Coast Environment Centre.
"Oatmeal for breakfast, rice for lunch, and maybe a carrot for dinner," Miss Guyton said.
But she was not expecting the challenge to be an easy one, normally spending between $10 and $15 a week on lunches.
"No more sushi for me. We expect withdrawal symptoms ... going to have to bolt the fridge shut," she joked.
When asked whether she could survive on $2.25 permanently, she said possibly for a month, but it would get desperate.
"It's definitely going to be more challenging than we expected," she said.
"We're pretty strong-willed and I think we can do it, but it won't be easy."
- The Southland Times
3 comments:
These strong-willed young women will be able to publish budgetry advice for the weak-willed at the end of the exercise.
Leadership from strong-willed young women should be more acceptable than from all the current sources.
Maybe some real good with come out of this.
We weak-willed are looking forward to the publication of their findings.
Looks like the apple does not full far from the tree :)
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