Is it possible to feed yourself on pocket change? Chris Miele, who lives on the border of Burnaby and Coquitlam, is finding out with a five-day challenge to raise awareness about extreme poverty, while spending only $1.75 for food per day.
The campaign is called Live Below the Line, and participants restrict their food budget in an effort to draw attention to the 1.4 billion people worldwide who live in extreme poverty.
"It's a really great way of raising awareness, making the participants themselves feel a lot more sympathetic with the people they will help," Miele said.
Miele is an SFU student currently taking a semester off. The NOW spoke with him on Day 4, to see how he was managing.
"I'm doing pretty OK, actually," he said. "The food that you eat is just really bland. It's not like don't have enough of it."
Miele and a couple of friends are doing the challenge for five days, from April 29 to May 3. Meanwhile, they are encouraging people to donate to one of four partner charities working to end extreme poverty: Cuso International, Raising the Village, RESULTS Canada, and Spread the Net, an anti-malaria initiative.
Miele has done the challenge before while on an exchange program in Australia.
"It's a really good program. There was a lot of positive reinforcement to do it," he said.
The challenge lasts five days, but Miele lived on an extreme poverty food budget for a month while in Australia.
"For me, the reason I wanted to do it for that long, I really wanted to get the full experience of having it really, really difficult for me," he said. "I would have that much more in depth of an idea of living in extreme poverty. ... I'm going to feel a lot more passionate about the subject afterwards and do whatever I can to get rid of extreme poverty."
According to Miele, there's a lot of decent food one can eat on that kind of budget. In Australia, he pooled his money with friends and bought things in bulk - potatoes, rice, fruit, a little bit of meat, garlic and soy sauce. He also suggests buying jam and herbs, to add a little flavour. Expensive items Miele avoids include lots of meat, coffee and cheese.
"The first few days you feel a little bit hungry, but your stomach shrinks quickly," he said.
Australia is also where the Live Below the Line challenge started. In 2009, Rich Fleming from the Global Poverty Project and Nick Allardice from the Oaktree Foundation in Australia, created the personal challenge to better understand the lack of freedom and choice for those living in extreme poverty.
In 2012, 15,000 people worldwide took on the challenge while raising more than $3.5 million for anti-poverty initiatives around the globe.
Miele chose to raise money for Results Canada, a national volunteer group dedicated to ending poverty. His goal is to raise $300, but at press time, his donations were at zero. For more information or to donate, go to livebelowtheline.ca.
