My son is in third grade and at his school; they have a saying “Are you living above the line or below the line?” Of course, above the line is doing good things and living below the line is doing bad things, so they encourage the children to live above the line.
But, living below the line isn’t always a bad thing. There is a new campaign I just discovered called “Live Below the Line.” What line are they talking about? The poverty line.
Live Below the Line is asking people to change their lives for just 5 days by living on the extreme poverty line.
I didn’t hear about the Live Below the Line campaign until it had already ended for 2012, but let me tell you what happened.
The campaign was held in May and 14,000 people worldwide took part in it. By taking part, they lived at the extreme poverty level of $1.25 a day. The amount (which varied from country to country) was determined by the World Bank. The other monies that they normally lived on was saved and then donated to help the charities fight to end poverty. This year, over $3 million was raised.
What’s it all about? Well, I suppose the founder of Live Below the Line, the Global Poverty Project and the Oaktree Foundation, figured that people would be more likely to give to the poor if they could experience what truly being poor was like.
Some of the funds raised have gone to building a primary school in Papua New Guinea as well as secondary schools in Cambodia. Hundreds of other schools have received scholarships. The charities believe that poverty can be broken through education and I agree.
You can preregister for next year’s event by visiting the Live Below the Line web page. I think I’ll do this and show my son that sometimes living below the line isn’t a bad thing.