JASON KIM Lives Below the Line
Live Below The Line
TEARAWAY Maverick Jason Kim takes the challenge.
 Pssst... you can sponsor Jason here: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/jasonkim
Right now I’m hungry.
This annoys me greatly, and as anyone that knows me well can tell you, I can be a pretty grumpy guy when my tummy is empty. I become easily irritable, begin to drift out of conversations and will eventually retreat somewhere to sulk.
But my mood doesn’t really make sense. If I’m hungry there are several options open to me in order to alleviate it. I can look in the fridge or pantry to fix myself something to eat, or I can walk down to the shops where a diverse range of delicious but unhealthy options await me.
As unfortunate as it is, I think the whole concept of being grateful for what we have, and to “think of those poor starving children in Africa!” has become somewhat of a cliché for today’s generation. While of course it’s a noble and desirable pursuit to try and give these issues the exposure and attention they so desperately need, at some point the constant deluge of issue-evangelism (combined with our natural apathy), relegates these important concerns into an abstract, un-relatable concept. We all agree it's something that is important and that we should do something about, but don’t actually have a tangible understanding of or sympathy for it.
Like it or not, people today live busy lives and can sometimes be a little self-absorbed. While a token donation once in a while may make us feel good about ourselves for helping to “make a difference”, I have become increasingly jaded as to the prospects of getting people to truly grasp the raw hard realities of poverty and the stark lack of choices, opportunities, and hope available to so many of our brothers and sisters around the world.
Personally, I would just get depressed thinking about this before reaching for another donut. But in 2009, two passionate social justice advocates in Australia, Rich Fleming and Nick Allardice, came up with a simple but brilliant plan to help people understand first-hand some of the hardships faced by those living in extreme poverty – while also raising money for a diverse range of worthy, charitable organisations and causes.
What started as a personal three-week challenge to try and live off an income at the poverty line is now a global movement, active in five countries (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and the UK). Since it was launched in Australia in 2010, Live Below the Line has had 48,354 participants raise $9.425m (USD) for more than 70 partner charities. By the time the NZ campaign is finished next month, Live Below The Line will be able to say that more than 50,000 people have taken the challenge, raising more than $10 million for their partners, according to CEO of the Global Poverty Project, William Watterson.
The Live Below The Line campaign is as much an exercise in empathy and improving our ability to really understand at an emotional level the realities of extreme poverty – as it is about raising money. To borrow a common slogan of anti-poverty advocates, “give a man a fish and he can feed himself for a day; teach a man how to fish, and he can feed himself for a lifetime”. Similarly, a one-off donation to anti-poverty charities may leave us feeling warm and fuzzy (and sure, all contributions help), but if we understand the true nature of extreme poverty and can develop a more personal connection and understanding of the issue, perhaps we might all become invested in looking for long-term solutions together.
How it works:
The Line itself is calculated by starting with a baseline Extreme Poverty Line of $1.25 US a day, which is the figure arrived at by the World Bank in 2005. This is then translated to the equivalent amount in the local currency by adjusting for purchasing power parity and inflation. In New Zealand, this figure comes out to $2.25 a day.
From here, the process is pretty straightforward – participants enlist their friends, family, co-workers, classmates etc. to sponsor them for completing the challenge. Participants can (and are advised to) spend the week’s budget on one shop of groceries (to cut down on costs) and then budget out the portions to ensure that they are in fact within the $2.25 figure each day.
Who are we helping?
The beauty of Live Below The Line is that the participants get to choose where their funds go. The impressive list of partners and causes includes:
Global Poverty Project: an international education and advocacy organisation working to speed up the movement to end extreme poverty. The GPP exists to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action to end extreme poverty, with the goal of eliminating extreme poverty within a generation.
Childfund: supports sustainable agriculture projects
TEAR Fund: helps rescue and rehabilitate women and girls from the sex trafficking industry
UNICEF: gives malnourished children life-saving food sachets
VSA: supports projects that reduce violence against women in the Pacific
Oxfam: helps the poor develop sustainable businesses and livelihoods
P3 Foundation: supports literacy and schools programmes
World Vision: supports an adult literacy project in Temotu (Solomon Islands)
Or choose from 16 other amazing partners, including micro-finance projects, orphanages, curing people of leprosy and much, much more.
Additionally, on top of all the good things done with the money raised through the Challenge, there has been significant headway made in the policy arena, with an army of activists around the world lobbying for important political change. Their most recent effort was the End of Polio campaign, where supporters helped grow political support for polio eradication and successfully campaigned for more than $1 billion to be committed to critical vaccination programs, helping to bring polio to the brink of eradication.
Sign-ups have now closed for this year’s challenge, and depending on when you read this it may be too late to donate to the cause by sponsoring someone who is doing the challenge (such as myself, for instance!). However, you can visit www.livebelowtheline.com/nz for more information or details about the project, and like the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/LBLNZ) or follow the Twitter account (www.twitter.com/LBNZ) to receive updates on the challenge and issue related news and info.
“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.” – Nelson Mandela
