Live Below the Line

The New Zealand equivalent of the absolute poverty line is $ 2.25 per day.

So every year, as part of an initiative to raise awareness and money, thousands of NZders choose to spend no more than $2.25 a day for food everyday from Monday to Friday...
And this year I decided to be a part of it.
The picture at the top is my food for the week...

Some pasta and rice, 6 eggs, 5 apples, instant noodles, rolled oats, lentil soup mix, 2 carrots and an onion and garlic.

I know this is a whole lot more variety than people who are in this situation for real get to have... I was able to plan my food, working out what would last the longest and still have vitamins etc to be healthy, but this isn't an option in most places round the world. And I know that there is no way I can ever simulate, in my life, what it would be like living under the poverty line when I still have my rent paid and plenty of warm clothes and being a full time student at a world class university... It just doesn't work like that.

But it's something.

And in a small way it brought the problem closer to home for me.

 

Thank you so much for those of you who sponsored me, you are amazing!

The money that was raised is going to Tear Fund, an organisation that targets some of the most vulnerable people groups around the world. I chose them partly because compared to some of the other big aid groups, they spend a lot less money on administration and advertising and more on actually helping people.

If you still wanted to be a part of this and support me, it’s not too late! This is the link for my profile with Live Below the Line.

https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/alieshashutte

 

I think these kind of initiatives are great and they do a lot of good.... however, I honestly believe that poverty is never going to have a dent made in it until the “rich” meet the “poor”

(I put that in quote marks because poverty is so much deeper and broader than financial situation. I’ve met some extremely poor people who have a whole lot of money)

As long as ‘the poor’ are still an abstract noun that lives on the other side of the ocean... nothing is going to change.

There is no personal connection to the situation, it doesn’t affect us.

True change is going to happen when our lives collide in glorious chaos and ‘the poor’ suddenly have names and faces and play with your kids and eat at your table.

Change will happen when that messy issue called Love comes into it...

 

There’s also this way of thinking that says to meet and know people in poverty you have to go overseas, on a missions trip or aid event... To live in the slums or clean up after a disaster to experience that.

This is a lie.

A huge amount of NZ lives under the poverty line... but regardless of where the line lies, there are people in every city who struggle to buy food, whose kids have to go to school with old clothes and shoes with holes in them. There are families everywhere with gambling, drinking, spending addictions that are robbing them. There are people on the streets in every city, some of them just hide better.

And that’s just financial poverty.

What about loneliness? Depression? Disabilities? Addiction?

If you have a heart for seeing poverty change, don’t be scared to get messy... Those sticky fingerprints left on your life are proof that change is happening.  And you’re a part of it.

Here's my question for you... Who do you know (actually know, not just see them around) that is in a different socio economic position than you are?