R12 a day challenge

My church has issued a challenge to its members to feed ourselves each on R12 a day from 17 to 21 October. Here's a bit about the R12 a day challenge:

Why R12 a day?  The World Bank defines ‘extreme poverty’ as living on less than US $1.25 or R12 per day.

In support of ‘World Food Day’ on the 16TH October and ‘International Day for the Eradication of Poverty’ on the 17TH October. 

1.4 billion People on our planet, and over ½ a million in Johannesburg survive on less than R12 a day for EVERYTHING.

Here are some stats:

South Africa
• SA is the most unequal society in the world. The richest 10% of the population receive
almost half the income and the poorest 10% receive a mere 0.2% of all income.
• 15% or 7.45 million people in SA live in ‘extreme poverty’.
City of Johannesburg
• Over ½ million people in JHB live below the poverty line of R12/day (this is for everything –
not just food).
• 45% of the 3.8 million residents (1.7 million) people live in what the SA govt terms ‘Absolute
Poverty’ ie on less than R800/month.
• Almost 20% of the population lives in informal dwellings (shacks). Many live in hazardly
dilapidated and overcrowded buildings.
• 19% of the population is illiterate.
• Approx 5% of the population (200 000 people) have no access to water, sanitation, refuse
disposal or electricity.
• 6% of children in Gauteng are severely malnourished.
• 350 000 children in JHB will never go to a pre-school as government doesn’t have sufficient
resources.


The Challenge to our congregation:
1. Live on R12/day for food and refreshments for 5 days starting on Monday 17th October.
2. Encourage colleagues, friends and family to join the ‘R12 a Day’ Challenge.
3. Donate what you would have spent on food and drink that week (money goes to food
parcels for GodFirst Tembisa members who actually live on R12 or less)
 
The purpose of the Challenge is to:
• Acknowledge world food and poverty day along with the rest of the world.
• Empathise with the poor as we experience, in a small way, part of their daily reality, and in
doing so allow God to break our hearts with compassion for the poor.
• Provide food for those in our church and city to whom this is a reality.

I'm busy drawing up a menu and a budget and this is tough! Anyone care to join me? Or to donate? You can find the rules here. There are also recipe ideas and other resources on the website.


Our church small group will be sharing a meal on Wednesday night together, pooling R4 from each of our R12 budgets for that day. I'm thinking veggie soup?


I'll try to blog about how it's going next week. I think this is going to be challenging, but it will certainly give us more empathy with South Africa's poor.