Winnipeg Harvest Hunger Challenge
Take the Winnipeg Harvest Hunger Challenge
June 5, 2008
Winnipeg Harvest is challenging you and other Winnipeggers to participate in the Winnipeg Harvest Hunger Challenge.
You and other community members are being asked to spend at least a week living on the amount of money provided by welfare for food, clothing and personal items.
Our theme is: "The experience of poverty will challenge you."
If you choose to take the Hunger Challenge, Winnipeg Harvest will outline the rules and provide you with a diary to make notes on the experience.
All participants were invited to the launch of the Winnipeg Harvest Hunger Challenge on National Hunger Awareness Day at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, June 5, 2008 at Winnipeg Harvest, 1095 Winnipeg Avenue.
Read Shelley Cook's blog: Living Below the Line
Read the blogs of other Hunger Challenge participants
Read the spending details of one Hunger Challenge participant
Meet the Hunger Challenge participants
As a participant in the Winnipeg Harvest Hunger Challenge, you will experience firsthand some of the challenges of being poor. You will make decisions that those living on social assistance make daily.
By raising their own consciousness, participants are able to help Winnipeg Harvest bring issues of living with hunger and poverty to the public.
The Hunger Challenge is a provocative exercise that asks individuals to face their fears and question their perceptions of poverty.
Each participant is required not to spend more than $6.50 per day in a one-week period to meet their food, clothing and personal needs.
The $6.50 ceiling was based in part on current rates of Employment and Income Assistance available to single, non-disabled welfare recipients.
Participants’ transportation costs to and from work are exempt, as the learning experience is based on welfare rates and most welfare recipients do not have those expenses.
As part of the journey, each participant is asked to complete a seven-day journal which includes questions and quotations and has space for personal reflection.
Please read the rules and guidelines carefully. If you are willing to accept the challenge, Winnipeg Harvest asks you to sign the letter of commitment.
Here are all the documents you need to participate:
* Rules and guidelines
* Letter of commitment
* Poverty Journal
* Life after the Poverty Challenge
* Comments by previous participants
The Winnipeg Harvest Hunger Challenge began in 2002 with the hope of raising public awareness of the everyday struggles faced by people living in poverty.
Winnipeg Harvest last held a Hunger Challenge from March 29 to April 11, 2005.
National Hunger Awareness Day is a grassroots movement started by America's Second Harvest in 2001 to raise public awareness about how we can solve domestic hunger. It is endorsed by the Canadian Association of Food Banks (CAFB).
Last modified 2008-06-09 06:34 PM
