Live Below The Line (LBTL) Challenge

June Emerson, who will be shopping locally
to complete her Live Below The Line Challenge

JUNE EMERSON joins the challenge to live on £1 a day to highlight the plight of millions of people who have no choice in the matter

IT wasn’t my sort of holiday, although everybody kept saying “Oh how wonderful. Lucky you!”

Not that the Norwegian coast isn’t beautiful, the fjords and mountains are spectacular. The sea was pretty calm all the way as the route is mostly between the coastal islands and the mainland. It’s just that when travelling abroad I like to be active, not passive. I much prefer to get eyeball to eyeball with another culture and see life from a fresh point of view.

To be taken, with a group of (let’s face it, well-heeled and elderly) people and protected in a cocoon of comfort and abundant food isn’t my idea of authentic living.

I must have returned with some underlying guilt for having gone along with this pampered lifestyle, because when I saw a magazine article called Living Below the Line I was immediately struck by it.

Living Below the Line (LBTL) runs an annual challenge: could you survive on £1 a day for food? For 1.5 billion people living below the extreme poverty line, that is their daily reality, and for them the £1 has to cover not only their food but shelter, warmth and education.

Joining this project not only raises funds to help combat poverty but also helps to spread the word about global injustice.

The challenge runs for five days, from May 7-11, and each participant signs up to an established charity. We’ve chosen Peace Direct.

LBTL produces an online recipe book with suggested menus and shopping lists, but we didn’t find this very helpful. The supermarket prices quoted were ridiculously low (it must be about five years out of date) and the menus very nutritionally unbalanced. Coupled with this, nothing will induce me to shop in supermarkets. ‘Cheap’ supermarket prices are artificially low and rely on their total power over their suppliers. Not my scene.

In Kirkbymoorside, it’s possible to buy absolutely all you need. You may not be able to buy all you want, but that’s another matter. Needs are essential, wants are almost wholly influenced by the media.

Our challenge therefore has an added element: Can we achieve it while still shopping locally and eating well? Watch this space...

If you would like to sponsor us by donating to Peace Direct, please go to:

www.livebelowtheline.com/me/june
www.livebelowtheline.com/me/davidmorris

Source: Gazette & Herald